5 reasons why Obama will hike middle-class taxes

C’mon, how about some Walter Mondalesque candor from the Obama White House on taxes? Yes, yes, it was 25 years ago this summer that the Democratic presidential candidate self-immolated on the issue at his party’s convention in San Francisco. But surely Americans have become more urbane and sophisticated since then as to what makes for sound economic policy, oui?

Nope. If you had any doubt that higher taxes are still poisonous policy in center-right America, all you had to do was listen to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs yesterday. He briskly and precisely walked back the White House from the ambiguous statements made by Tim Geithner and Larry Summers on the Sunday chat shows. “I am reiterating the president’s clear commitment in the clearest terms possible that he’s not raising taxes on those who make less than $250,000 a year,” Gibbs said.

But what’s so clear, Mr. Gibbs? “Commitment” in this context is a schemer’s word, the much-weaker-yet-more-conniving sibling of “guarantee.” Did Broadway Joe express a mushy “clear commitment” to winning the 1969 Super Bowl? Clearly not. In any event, feel free to ignore Gibbs or any other White Housespinmeister who gives the impression that President Obama raising middle-class taxes would be the equivalent of playing himself in a Hollywood biopic — so unlikely as to be fanciful. It’s not and here’s why it will happen eventually:

1) Obama knows the budget math doesn’t work. Put aside today’s budget mess. It’s gospel among center-left wonks (the kind of folks who give Obama economic advice) that structural government spending as a percentage of GDP is headed sharply higher over the long term because of entitlements — and there’s little that can be done about it. The ratio has been around 20 percent or so the past few decades, and number crunchers forecast a sharp rise to 25 percent (best case scenario) to 30 percent (worst case) of GDP over the next few decades. Tax revenues typically hover around 18 percent of GDP. That gap — representing $500 billion to $1 trillion a year — will need to be closed or else cause economic chaos. The possible answers: a) less spending, b) higher tax revenues from higher growth, or c) higher tax revenues from higher rates on the non-wealthy. Oh, and the wonks are convinced “a” is a political impossibility and “b” an economic one. They’re wrong, but that’s what they think.

2) Obama seems to prefer tax hikes to spending cuts. Reduced future healthcare spending needs to be a huge part of the budget solution, and ObamaCare doesn’t make the grade at this point. Right now the various Obamacrat plans actually make things worse by failing to “bend the curve.” What’s more, Obama has proposed nothing as president to make Social Security solvent. And during the campaign, his preferred fix was higher payroll taxes rather than commonsense measures like extending the retirement age or changing how benefits are calculated. Of course, Obama has also proposed raising income, investment, corporate and energy taxes. Cut spending or raise taxes – forObama it’s an easy pick, unfortunately.

3) Obama has already tried raising taxes. Let’s, for the sake of argument, ignore the increased federal cigarette tax that would certainly seem to be a violation of Obama’s tax pledge. Call it a misdemeanor offense. But what about his cap-and-trade proposal, a de facto energy tax on everyone? Before the plan was modified in the House, the White House expected the plan to bring in some $80 billion a year from 2012 to 2019 by auctioning off carbon emission permits (probably to pay for healthcare reform). And making energy more costly is as about as broad-based a tax as you can get.

4) Obama’s advisers are for higher taxes. Let’s review, for example, what White House economic adviser and guru Larry Summers said on Sunday about tax hikes: “There is a lot that can happen over time. It is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out no matter what.” Indeed, Summers won’t rule it out because he thinks all the Bush tax cuts need to go, not just the ones for so-called rich folks. Here is Summers from earlier this year on Meet the Press when he put no qualifiers on letting the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2010: “I don’t think there’s any question they have to be repealed. The country can’t afford them for the long run. … They can’t be, they can’t be part of the long-run budget picture.” Not for anyone, it seems.

5) Obama doesn’t seem to think high taxes are harmful. Think about this: Not only was the top income tax rate a stratospheric 70 percent when President Reagan took office in1981, the tax code was not indexed to inflation. A lethal combo for economic growth. But here’s what Obama wrote about the Reagan tax cuts in The Audacity of Hope: “The high marginal tax rates that existed when Reagan took office may not have curbed incentives to work or invest, but they did distort investment decisions — and did lead to the wasteful industry of setting up tax shelters.” That’s it! Heavens, if Obama doesn’t think the pre-Reagan tax code wasn’t a disincentive to working, saving and investing, is there any tax system that he would find anti-growth?

Bottom line: The belief in the need for higher, European-style taxes (like a VAT) fills the policy cloud that surrounds Obama. It’s hard to overstate this. It’s right up there with global warming. Obama knows he faces a looming fiscal crisis and higher taxes will be his weapon of choice. To paraphrase Mondale, “Obama will raise middle-class taxes. He won’t tell you (yet). I just did.

I hope he does raise taxes and I hope it makes the people who had no problem receiving tax cuts during wartime crap their pants. We have become a country of greedy, ignorant rubes who are fine with billing our grandkids for tax cuts but won’t seriously consider leaving them a decent health care system.

Obama will try to pass of hidden tax raises, much like he’s trying with the Cap and Trade Bill. All sorts of taxes will go up on the middle class with health care, but they just won’t be called taxes. As long as he doesn’t actually raise income taxes, he’ll call all of his de facto tax raises something else.He is proving to be politically inept once in power. Dogmatically bound to ideology, he cannot fathom cutting taxes for anyone even remotely rich or involved in business – even his measly tax breaks for the middle class have more to do with his ethos of “compassion” and “fairness” than any kind of economic reasoning. He is incapable of offering anything but spending and tries to call it “systemic” change that will cut costs in the future. No one buys his economic arguments because they know he doesn’t care about efficiency and growth – the entire base of support for health care “reform” is ideological or crony capitalism or bureaucratic power grabbing.If he doesn’t raise taxes, the deficit looms large over his re-election prospects. If he cuts spending (almost inconceivable) then he loses his base. He has put himself in a lose, lose, lose situation. The only reason he’ll get re-elected is simply because of no viable Republican opposition.

Did Broadway Joe express a mushy “clear commitment” to winning the 1967 Super Bowl?No, he did not. He gave an iron clad guarantee to win the 1969 Super Bowl.As a Baltimore Colt fan, I’m still waiting for him to break it.

If you aren’t rich now, you better hurry up and get rich, b/c once Obama puts all his new taxes in place, that will be it for growth for a long, long time. So, if you’re middle class, I hope you enjoy it b/c your wealth won’t be going up anytime soon. Of course, prices will – for gas, for energy, for political favors – but you’re buying power won’t. And, frankly, you deserve every last bit of pain that this stagnation brings. You were stupid and ignorant in voting for this charlatan. All the warning signs were there. People were screaming from the rooftops. But you wanted to believe in a childish fairtytale. You fat, happy, TV-anesthetized, uneducated rubes fell for it all. Rather than pick up a book, you ate up the slop that the media sold you. Guess what, the people that control the media are rich already, so why should they care if you stay poor? You are too stupid and lazy to stand up for your own freedom. And Obama knows that, and he is going to exploit you for every ounce of power and wealth that he can take. I’m glad I’ve got mine, because there won’t be any more soon. Good luck, fools.

Does anyone out there really believe that $250,000/year is middle class? It’s less than 4% of the population!Make the richies pay more taxes! They live in a country that enabled them to earn that much- time to pay for the privilege.Bob

It’s a new day for the Democratic party, no longer can they be labelled ‘tax-and-spend’. They have left that vile trait behind and moved on bigger and better things. What might that be you ask? It’s SPEND-THEN-TAX.

Someone wrote a comment here saying it’s time for the “richies” to pay for the privilege of being rich.Liberals are telling you exactly who they are and what they want for America. The question is: are you listening?

A general comment: I don’t view these comments as enlightened discourse. We (and I do mean “we”) so easily descend to the point of labeling anyone who does not agree with our views (totally) as utter fools. Personally, I don’t tend to become more receptive when someone labels me as an idiot right off the bat. Whether I typically admit it or not, I see validity in almost all of the comments I read, right or left, if they are civil. But I don’t seriously consider any comments delivered viciously. I bet I’m not the only one. I am very liberal, but I will listen to others if they will do the same for me. Sorry, folks, but for some of you who are so righteous in your indignation here, I really wonder what you would actually do if you found yourself in the position of developing and implementing economic policy. That, in my opinion, should be a sobering thought. For anyone.

The liberal whiners here are so tiresome. Yes, he gets paid to write and you’re here reading him, thereby proving his worth. It is no wonder you can do no better than to regurgitate class warfare talking points. Capitalism has been waging and winning a war against socialism since at least the FDR era. In the 30’s these idiotic policies deepened and lengthened a depression that should have been a recession. In the 70’s even Republicans tried anti-free market price controls with predictable results; shortages.You think that tax rates can be increased only on upper brackets with no impact on you but history proves otherwise. Shrinking economies and rising unemployment are the result. Tax the “rich” and you hurt the middle and lower class.There is plenty to be outraged about. Read the budget or any of the assinine bills being rammed through congress. Money is being seized from hard working people and redistributed by congress in a vote buying scheme. The only ones who benefit from big government are the politicians and their parasite pals.

Of course he’ll raise taxes on the middle class, there’s no where near enough millionaires to fund his remaking of America. And Elitist always like to spend other peoples money, and the great unwashed will be his next ATM…http://cooperscopy.blogspot.com/

You know, and I know that Obama is going to hit everything that lives and breathes in our country with higher taxes. It will be interesting to see how he does it while still claming he isn’t? And even more interesting to see if the majority of the American people will buy it?

Bob said: “Make the richies pay more taxes!”LOL! They do! Did you know that the top 5% pay over 90% of all income taxes. The bottom 50% pay less than 3% of all income taxes. Did you know that? I bet not.As Maggie Thatcher stated so wonderfully: “The problem with Socialism is that, eventually, you run out of other people’s money.”That’s what’s happening here, Bob.Also… did you know that when Reagan took office (when the top tax rate was 70%) income tax receipts were about $500 Billion? When he left, and the top rate was 28%, income tax revenues were almost DOUBLE!Yes, I know folks like you DO NOT understand (it’s ECO101), but lower taxes bring in more money (to a point) and higher taxes bring in less. It’s a fact.EVEN JFK KNEW THAT and lowered taxes as soon as he got into office.

Man, some of you people scare me.Why should the successful get punished? I am not wealthy and I have NEVER been jealous or envious of other people’s money. Why should the Federal Government confiscate the wealth of others to pay for YOUR kids, YOUR house, YOUR food, YOUR healthcare? I don’t get it. I would NEVER think to turn to ANY government agancy to pay for me or my family. What kind of a unmotivated loser would expect the government (or anyone) to pay for THEIR family.Here’s an idea. Stay in school, get a good job, spend within your means, don’t have kids you can’t support….. I don’t know, seems pretty simple to me. But no.. we have guilty white liberals who think they are doing others favors with these lifelong social programs than do nothing but re-enslave others.You bought a house you cannot pay for? Don’t worry, the government will pay. You ran a company into the ground? Don’t worry, the government will pay. You have 4 kids by three different father and have no means of supporting them? Don’t worry, the government will pay.Seems to me that we are quickly becoming a country that rewards irresponsible behavior and punishes success and good decisions.Man, we are in HUGE trouble if this trend continues.

It us truly sad how many voters took Obama’s “free lunch” policies as truth.The idea that we can have massive increases in government handouts, converting the US to a more European-style social democratic system, and pay for this only off the “rich” is ridiculous.Have any of these voters actually been to Canada or Europe? Every other major social democratic country pays for their entitlements by taxing the heck out of the middle and working classes. Go to the UK, where at the peak gas/petrol was $10 a gallon, cigarettes are $10 a pack, a glass of beer in a grimy pub is $6, there is a 17.5% VAT/Fed sales tax on every purchase and someone making $55k a year is in the 40% income tax bracket.The funny thing is, even with all these taxes they still have to ration healthcare and they are still going bankrupt.This is the truth of where the US is headed.High spending means high taxes for EVERYONE.

“Why should the Federal Government confiscate the wealth of others to pay for YOUR kids, YOUR house, YOUR food, YOUR healthcare?”It’s called Socialism, and at least 25-30% of the population wants that. So does Obama. It’s usually the lazy and jealous that want it.It works so well, right? Cuba (average monthly income: $20), USSR (collapsed), etc….

The top 5% of EARNERS pay about 60% of all income tax. This is a fact that liberals just can’t come to grips with, along with the Laffer Curve.It is also a rarely discussed fact that taxes are levied as if the tax payer makes that amount of money EVERY YEAR. An entreprenuer who makes $100K one year and nothing the next pays more tax than the no-risk guy who makes $50K each year. Talk about NOT FAIR.The constant tug of war in tax rates makes business planning difficult. Taxes should be paid by all to provide shared services. Period. The current “system” is a joke and it is keeping this capitalist country from reaching its full potential when we need to very badly.http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/m enu/irs_screen_grab.guest.html

Stop with the lies on taxes and the rich. The facts are the rich have paid more, even under Bush and the poorest have paid less. Unlike our elected officials please educate yourself before you speak.http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?P ageID=6

BOB and Mike Flynn, see the stats from last week (7/30)on tax revenue. The top 1% of Americans pay 40.4% of our taxes which is more than all of the bottom 95% combined. In gaining their wealth they have no doubt provided employment for many of the bottom 95%. Plus Bob, who do they owe for the privilage? It was not handed to them by the government.

Can you say Federal Sales Tax? Canada has a 7% GST[general sales tax] to go along with their PST[provincial sales tax} so much for free health care!I just wonder how he is going to exempt the poor from paying it as is is collected at retail

Also… did you know that when Reagan took office (when the top tax rate was 70%) income tax receipts were about $500 Billion? When he left, and the top rate was 28%, income tax revenues were almost DOUBLE!posted by ster____________________________________ ___________________This is an oft-quoted Hannity “fact” that is easy to prove wrong. Go to irs.gov and look at the revenues for the Reagan years. Revenue dropped like a rock after his tax cut, then went up only after he raised taxes several times.

After 28 years of no tax and spend big republican administrations it would not be a big surprise if tax raises were required to reduce the deficit. You can’t say charge it for ever. Between my employer and my self my current HMO cost over a thousand a month for myself and my wife. If I no longer had to pay for my HMO then my employer could afford to give me a raise and I would gladly pay $500 more per month in taxes. It would put more than $5000 back in my pocket annually. Bring on national health care, bring on a socialistic health care. Our current system under the insurance companies thumbs is an absolute rip off, its not working, and its time for America to give insurance companies the boot.

Let’s face some reality. Obama’s and Pelosi’s legislation will increase taxes for those families making LESS than $250,000 as well as for those making more. There is just no way out of it. And these higher taxes are going to reduce spending on goods and services and investments by individuals and families. It’s a shame we cannot get rid of Obama after two years. His complete lack of experience in running any organization and very liberal background (based on Saul Alinsky’s teachings)is showing up in poor judgments on how to run a country, especially with the severe economic downturn that we are experiencing.

So if the rich want to pay less taxes and want the poor to pay more maybe they should try paying their employees enough that they do get taxed.Since some of the richest are the worst tippers I find it hard to believe they have any generosity towards the poor. The rich have been eating your cake while you get the crumbs…..Enjoy

Consider this: the Obama administration has unprecedented control over the finance and the treasury. Once the recession eases their plan is to allow inflation so more and more households and small businesses are above the $250,000 mark. Eventually the middle class HAS to bear the burden. The rich will just pack up and leave and can afford to do so.

I started to build an insurance business once.It was incredibly difficult. I finally decided to give it up and become a producer for a successful agent.I have total respect for anyone who builds a successful business in this country.Most liberals have no idea what it takes to be truly successful and become “rich.”The big disconnect is this: those ‘horrible’ rich folks are the ones who employ most Americans.Tax those folks, make it practically impossible for them to run a successful business, and they will cut their staff, or sadly, just give up.Quit whining, you miserable liberals.You seem to always want something for nothing.If you think socialism/communism is so great and America is so bad, why don’t you take the next boat to China, or North Korea, or Cuba?

roger- while I agree the repub’s have spent too much, if you think it will get you a bunch more money in your paycheck to have the gov. take over the healthcare- think hard about it.There is nothing the gov. does efficiently, so obamacare will cost more, deliver less and drive the whole insurance industry out of business, keep the smart “would-be” medical doctors in other professions, since after obamacare dictates that doctors should “spread the wealth around” and work for 50K a year, there will be fewer doctors.This should start a good business oportunity to set up private clinics/doctors so if you can afford it you can see a “real doctor” rather the obamacare subsititute.

I agree wholeheartedly with this writer. Thank God someone has the guts to tell the truth about Obama and this democrat congress. At 64 years old, I am working to just get insurance for me and my husband. I don’t want “Free” healthcare because nothing is free. Someone pays. Ditto on the writer who said, get a job, don’t spend more than you make and don’t have children for me to take care of. I left my children to go to work and help my husband take care of our family. I hated to put them in childcare which we paid for but it was what we needed to do to keep our heads above water. I feel like everyone else can do it too.

I’m laughing my butt off here. Not for all you decent middle class people that didn’t vote for the fraud. I’m laughing because all those suckers, trolls and Obots that DID vote for him are going to take it up the butt on taxes. At least the 48% of us knew this was coming had a chance to prepare. It’s even worse when your such a rube that gets taken to the cleaners, all by your own doing. You know, the same peoplke that fall for the Nigerian prince has your winning lottery ticket again and again. Despite all the evidence that tells you it’s a flat out scam and you wil lbe ripped offMe? I don’t have any debt to my name but I don’t have a single asset either. Life will continue on the same for me whether there is a tax hike or not

OLDSCHOOL”I hope he does raise taxes and I hope it makes the people who had no problem receiving tax cuts during wartime crap their pants. We have become a country of greedy, ignorant rubes who are fine with billing our grandkids for tax cuts but won’t seriously consider leaving them a decent health care system.”Spoken like a true Communist hippie. When are you going to realize that taxing the poor in America is a BAD idea?You want a class war, it’s coming, and when your too old to fight you will be discarded just as you taught the youth of this nation to do with old toys.Do you really want to see bitter, gun clingers? Your going to get it. There are a lot of pissed of people in this country and Hippiecrats like you are just pissing kerosine on the fires of our discontent.

to all the idiots (that’s right, i am calling you idiots), who say that the rich aren’t paying enough, just a few points to ponder in what remains of your IQ:1. when is enough enough? when half of everything you earn is taken away? when 60%? 70%?2. while you may be happy to live in a one-bedroom apartment surrounded by crackheads and dope dealers, some of us try to better ourselves by working harder than you, saving more than you, and pulling ourselves and our families out of poverty. why are you incentivizing FAILURE? Shouldn’t you REWARD success?3. lastly, I earn 150k a year. Between all taxes, fees, charges, etc. I have close to 60k confiscated from me. Isn’t 60k enough? Oh by the by, every time tax rates are reduced, tax receipts into the state and fed govnt increase. makes you think that perhaps odumbo and his cronies are acting backwards, doesn’t it?

Look at what politics have do to this country. There’s not a single difference in Republican and Democratic politicians. Bush spent and taxes our brains out, so will Obama. Bush did it marginally more than Clinton and Obama will do it marginally more than Bush, party doesn’t matter.Guys it’s us vs them, them being the bureaucrats in our country. Bush didn’t care about protecting you, Obama doesn’t care about making your life better, it’s all a sad fairy.It’s statists vs small gov’t advocates, it’s not left vs right. Republican politicians want to grow gov’t, so do Democrats. 45% of the money made in America goes to the gov’t whether it be through income taxes, gas taxes, property taxes, fees, fines etc.Ron Paul 2012, it’ll be our last chance, we’re giving our future sons and daughters no choice but to revolt and I can’t imagine the disaster that will bring in a nuclear age.

Obamowhamo has made many promises that he can not keep. Not taxing the middle class is yet another. I don’t care how many times he says it, he will destory us with taxes!- Posted by MIkeI tend to disagree.Obamowhamo will destroy us all with incremental Marxism and Martial law after the collapse of our Government through liberal amendments to our “living” but burned Constitution.Liberal Dems are the same filthy hippies of the 70’s…. and want to tell you what you’re going to do…. Lazy, jealouse stupid hippies. It’s ment to be argumentative. But I bet you would rather the government fight it for you…..Entitlement programs have and will always fail. Only personal responsability prevails and is respected by others.

*****Why should the successful get punished?*****This, in a nutshell, describes the conservative view point with respect to taxes. Now, I’m a proud card-carrying liberal. And the way I see it, although anything, including tax rates, can be excessive, in general I don’t think paying our bills via higher taxes (as opposed to deficit-finance) is “punishment.” Rather, I see it as the price of admission to a civilized society. I don’t like dirty streets, and old and antiquated transportation infrastructure, and sick elderly people living in misery, and dilapidated schools, and poorly maintained public parks. It’s true that quality public goods require a robustly funded public sector, and that means higher taxes than we’re paying now. But I disagree with those who claim this would be a bad thing: all the evidence I’ve seen of late strongly suggest median living standards are higher in higher tax northern Europe than in the US.

Why did so few point out that the increase in the cigarette tax violated Obama’s promise about not raising taxes? We will see the same thing down the road. When the Obama administration or Congress proposes a VAT, they will argue that it was only the income tax that Obama promised not to raise. (By the way, a VAT will undercut the ability of states to raise revenue using sales taxes, which is why we do not have a VAT today.)

Great article. However, he fails to mention what the correct solution is, and I suspect it’s “B”; increase tax revenues through aggressive GDP growth. The REAL reason Dems don’t like this option is because the only way (aside from a technological breakthrough which enhances productivity) to aggressively grow GDP is to cut marginal tax rates. And this the Dems will NEVER do; they would sooner cut off their b***ls with a rusty razor.Jack Kemp was a pro-growth fiscal conservative, and he had it correct. If GDP is $1,000 and you have a 10% tax rate, you have $100 in tax revenue. If you drop taxes to 9% and thereby grow GDP to $1,200, you have $108 in tax revenue. Reagan, Bush, and JFK all proved that is really does work.

Not only the “rich” but also small business will be punished. $250,000 in S-corp earnings isn’t much when a business owner is trying to expand and hire more people. That money is counted as personal income until it’s spent. So, if a $300,000 business wants to hire a half-time assistant at $15/hour it’s the equivalent of a 5% additional tax.

First, raising taxes is better than you think. If I had a million dollar income at 75% taxes, I would invest money and get a dollar per dollar investment credit or deduction rather than paying taxes. So higher taxes on the wealthy actually creates investement in the social structure as a tax deduction to avoid the higher taxes.Second, raising medicare taxes 1% over present rate will help just a little with the health care plan. I am for a universal payer and to hell with the 25% average profit of insurance companies. Medicare does not require a profit and more money goes for care. Also, one set of rules and one set of forms for payment is much better than 12 to 15 many doctors deal with.Third, if in perspective of the developments in the economy and overall health of our people, do we want to quibble about money. We need healthy people for a stronger nation, not a lot of obese diabetics with disabled stickers. More taxes for that is reasonable.Fourth, taxing small business will kill incentive. No it will not. Small businessmen are greedy and most do not provide health insurance or retirement as they do for themselves. They put off employee benefits and many never provide them. Also, small business corporations have so many tax deductions and write offs that it is actually better to be an owner with all the loopholes than try to work for anyone. Small businesses want all the money they can get and save, even if they skim out of the till. Forget any sympathy for small businesses.Fifth, Taxing the wealthy. Anyone making over 1 million dollars a year should be hit with a greed tax. The bailout bonuses were astounding up to 25 million dollars, and that on top of an already exorbitant salary. They should be taxed to 90 % on all over 2.5 million. They take that money and put into foundations and keep it from the government and get the fun of spending their own money, like Bill Gates, tax free and with public endorsement.Thank you for reading this.

To Pat, who says “This is a fact that liberals just can’t come to grips with, along with the Laffer Curve.”The Laffer Curve can be used to argue that a decrease in taxes will *lower* revenue unless the tax rate is over 65%… and to quote Nobel prize laureate James Tobin, “[t]he ‘Laffer Curve’ idea that tax cuts would actually increase revenues turned out to deserve the ridicule with which sober economists had greeted it in 1981″Limbaugh gives uneducated conservatives just enough information to help them misunderstand previously unheard of concepts.

Joe,Are you related to Hitler?I hope you enjoy your 1 doctor with your 1 form of paperwork and your 1 form of payment.Sounds as if you have a little experience with the greedy side….. oh, and I sense a little dictator inside of you too. LOL You spent quite a bit of time explaining how you have no problems telling others that they have no right to choose what, when, and how their earned income is spent. I suggest you sell everything you own, give it all to Uncle Bimbo, and move to a collective commune in Cuba. It’s obviously what your abdicating. So get on with it and leave the rest of us that don’t want your way of life alone.I work for a living, not to support you, your form of illness, your habits, your way of life, or beliefs. Now GET OFF MY LAWN!!!

>>are the top 5% paying enough back to the system they are so good at profiting from?Considering those 5% pay the vast majority of income taxes, and the bottom 50% pay almost none, then yes, that top group IS paying enough back into the system.And no, I’m not one of them!

So all of Obama’s advisors and Obama wants to raise taxes.Well why don’t we just all vote that everyone receiving a paycheck including the president and Mrs. Obama start paying the taxes that all of us have to pay and maybe they will all think twice in spending and taxing us all.That will definitely get everyone thinking.

And Al Gore won a Nobel also. Whoopie doo. I can buy one at the Mexican Pawn shop in Baytown. Deosn’t make squat when you tell me I have to pay FOR YOU. Robin Hood Liberal with “feel good” legislation, or “I Feel A Legacy”. Just trying to make a name at someone elses expense.By the way, I ate the polar bear so it wouldn’t drown.MMMMMMMMMMM

Taxes are only one part of the equation.Considering that health care is rising at 2-3 times the rate of inflation and wages, and that wages are decreasing for many people as more corporations use globalization to their advantage, then it won’t be very long before health insurance will consume a major portion of income anyway. So those that can afford health insurance and uninsured healthcare will be paying enormous amounts while more and more people go uncovered, raising rates even more.So now tell me would you rather pay 15% in taxes and another 40% in health care costs out of your gross income or 40% or less in total as taxes for all government services including a single payer health system? Raising taxes while offsetting the other costs that are killing doesn’t seem like a bad way to go.When you compare tax rates of the US versus the UK or elsewhere, you do have to consider all the extra charges we pay as Americans for the privatized services that our government doesn’t provide.This isn’t about the bogeyman of socialised medicine. It’s about how we’re going to give all of our citizens accesses to health care as a basic right.Most people seem to like the way Medicare works, but they seem to have a real problem with that same model being applied to everyone at all ages.

And on to the “Regulation” of banks…. Didn’t the Facist Mussolini start with the auto industry and banks? I smell a big fat ElitisT among us……. God thing the Yanks are coming back to fight the war at home.

Mike,I don’t know where you live, but if I go to the ER I have the basic right to healthcare, I just have to wait in line behind all of the illegal immigrants, social dregs, and others that got there first. Guess what, it doesn’t change under the Gov plan no matter how much money you throw at it. Doctors will not work for free, and neither will you. With gov healthcare you will still wait in line for mediocre services. Ever serve in the Armed Forces? Ever have to go on post and get your teeth pulled? It’s a far cry from the Mayo Clinic pal.

the American people are sick and tried of hearing the left and the right don’t you guys get it. I’m a 22 year old educated young African-American and our economy has been through in a lack of finding better words to phrase through hell and you guys want to talk about who is wrong and who is right. I want our economy to be better and you know what Obama is doing a helluva of a job with what the pervoius president Bush missed up upon.Think about that one you inconsiderate know at all’s.

Pethokoukis’ inane ravings are so unconnected unconnected to reality that he must be sponsored by FOX news. Idea #1 alone is so full of errors that I don’t have time to examine the rest. The last time government spending as a percent of GDP was “around 20 percent or so”? Around 1929 or so, not the past few decades. “That gap” that needs to be closed or else cause economic chaos? I guess he’s trying to talk about the deficit, but he’s not okay with unfamiliar terms. Deficit spending is either (a) a fact of government policy for the past few decades or so, regardless of administration, and is okay because government macrobudgets don’t operate like Pethokoukis’ wallet microbudget or (b) the great liberal evil because it’s too hard to understand “a” and nobody explains it on tv. Oh, and the wonks are convinced that it must be “c”: I don’t know and I don’t really care, but I just like to be angry and blog. Pethokoukis: you should have paid more attention in school.

To the fools who think the top 5% of Americans that earn over $250,000 “the richies” believe that we need to pay more than the rest of you – I ask you to ponder this – The top 5% of American earners pay for 88% of all taxes collected (us treasury web site). Top 5% covering 88% of all taxes collected and you want more, hom much more should they pay… Will you liberal/socialists be happy when the top 5% pay 100%.You should be ashamed to be so lazy and pass so much of the Obama “Change Burden” onto a select few

How about lets just take our hard-earned money, take what we need to survive (ramen noodles are good, and we need little more than a cardboard box for shelter), then give the rest of it to government bureaucrats so that they can recycle it back to us (after going through 10 different levels of people, all getting GS-13 or higher paychecks) to pay for our food and shelter!Or, we could be rational human beings (are there any of those left in this country?) and revert back to the “Protestant” Work Ethic that worked so well for our fore-fathers and actually work rather than wait for government handouts.I’m not in the top tier of payment (I’m barely on the bottom tier, full-time summer job, in college where I have hefty student loans), but I don’t think that it is quite fair to take money from the people who worked for it (or are famous, take your pick), and make them have to live at a standard less than their income just because the people in government are jealous of their success in the private sector… Get a life, politicians, and just let people get on with their lives without worrying about how they are going to pay their bills even with a Master’s degree or higher…And about those in the higher brackets: there is a debt to society, but its not to the government… Charities are much more efficient and actually accomplish more.

I think nobody want tax increase, but with the huge blossoming of governement debt to expect, there is no choice for any politician. There is no federal asset that can be sold to compensate this financial black hole. Selling the Navy?? Offices? AIG? GM? No governement is good at making money, just good taking it from our pockets.

Reagan cut taxes hoping that govt spending would be cut (“starve the beast”). It didn’t work, as Congress embraced deficit spending to deliver high levels of services at low tax rates.Obama has ratcheted spending from 21% of GDP to 28% of GDP. While this may be defensible if it were a short term boost to recap the banks and invest in infrastructure, much of it is permanant spending designed to grow over time.Plus, we get higher spending as the Boomers retire on entitlements.All of this is leading to higher taxes – 70% marginal rates, higher caps on payroll taxes (real job killers), a VAT tax, much higher investment taxes, etc.I don’t really recall this debate in the 2008 election. It is being done with misdirection and stealth.

Unbelievable. Middle class, what middle class! The middle class has been eliminated by corporate greed and the unethical practices of the banking industry. Wages have been stagnant for over 8 years and was not due to paying higher taxes. Corporations are rewarding only their top executives, not their workers. Health care costs have risen over 53% over the last few years and we should be worried about paying higher taxes! Come on! At least Obama is addressing all these tough issues facing our country and not off clearing brush, vacationing at his ranch.

Obamacrat? Obamacare? I’m supposed to take you seriously now?Reuters must be scrapping the barrel for bloggers. A higher marginal tax rate is disincentive to work? lol What garbage! So, if I’m making $250,000 /yr, its simply not worth it to try to earn that $250,001st dollar because I keep less of it after taxes than the previous 250k? Nonsense. This is such a tired OLD argument.Of course, most people with that income aren’t exactly waiters trying to turn tables faster (iotw- work harder)… nor would you want them to be (i.e. Doctor’s, Lawyers, CEOs). Do you think Joe CEO making 2 mil a year seriously thinks – “man, I’m just gonna slack off now, half of every new dollar I earn at this point goes to the government.” lol Riiiigght.It always makes me laugh to read these comments from all the Joe Average’s out there that think taxes on the wealthy hurt them. The Bush Tax cuts were a boon to the wealthy and we had 8 years marked by increased economic inequality, increased concentration of wealth, and stagnant middle class wages. Keep on drinkin’ the cool aid that those tax cuts worked for you. lol

The problem with being worried about raising taxes is like treating a symptom of the flu and not lying in bed to get healty. Its clear the government is and has been spending more than we have, and you can only cut the budget so far before the society can’t function, the only thing left is to raise taxes. I simply hope that our leaders are smart enough to use the money wisely, and if they aren’t – I’m voting for someone else. We all had a part in letting the previous spending get out of hand.

The rich pay less taxes now than when Reagan was president. The argument that less taxes will improve the economy runs out of steam when no one pays any taxes. There is a limit. The rich should pay their share after all they have 90% of the wealth of this country in their pocket. Class warfare is about to start. Watch out. Everyone knows where the rich people live, and their entire families too. The wealth will be redistributed one way or another. Distribution by taxes is the peaceful way. There are other ways.

Rather than blast the author, think about what he is saying.Everything that the Democrat-controlled Congress has proposed since Mr. Obama has taken office is going to lead, not only to higher taxes, but a higher cost of living.Whether it is cap and trade, health care reform, or the so-called stimulus plan, these programs mean higher taxes or a higher cost of living, or both!This points out just one of Mr. Obama’s many flaws: he promotes legislation that he readily admits he hasn’t read. Is that leadership?No, it isn’t.It’s mainly the “Chicago way” of conducting politics transplanted to Washington. In Chicago, the pols ignore the facts and strong-arm their party to compliance!We don’t need Al Capone (a.k.a. Mr. Obama) running our country.I hate to ask it, but, how’s that “hope and change” working for you?

raise taxes on the “rich” and make healthcare more expensive for employers through mandates and surcharges and the “rich” and employers (often one and the same) will pass those costs on to the “middle class” and “poor” through increased prices, decreased production (i.e., less inventory – in other words, shortages) and job cuts. So, when you’re making $50,000 a year and your boss’ expenses just went up 12% and you either lose your job or have your wages frozen, good luck trying to make ends meet when all the goods and services you need have also increased in price.Furthermore, after O’s great healthcare fix, how many doctors will there be in 10 years? Why be a doctor? Why drop $200,000 in education expenses? Why be exposed to massive potential liability through lawsuits? If your reward is now reduced (as it would certainly be since the govt will cap costs) but your risk is still high, why would anyone with enough brains to be a doctor actually do it? If, after taxes, that doctor is no better off than your average middle class worker, why deal with all the bull? Clock in, clock out, go home. Let someone else deal with the headache. And that, in a nutshell, is what happens to all careers and all fields under socialism, which is why it only has a two to three generation shelf life. But, hey, don’t take my word for it. Wait a few years.

We shouldn’t be asking, “Why should the successful be punished”. The core question is: “what should a government provide?” As Ben Franklin said, ” A government that is big enough to give you everything you need is big enough to take everything you have.”If we can agree on what the government should legitimately be providing and what the private sector should be providing than we can begin to assess what are reasonable costs and taxes. (Infrastructure? Healthcare? Military Defense? Law Enforcement? Banking? Requlatory Oversight? Auto manufacturing? Environmental Regs based on disputed theories?) Whether the government provides a service should be based on three things:- Is it a legitimate role of government?- Is it more efficiently provided by the government than the private sector?- Does it benefit society at large sufficiently to justify taxing the general populace? (I.E. should the childless be expected to pay for children’s education?)Most of you wanting the ‘richies’ to pay for more services don’t understand the work, sacrifice and risk the majority of the rich go through to make it.They made hard choices that others weren’t willing to make and generate income for a lot of other folks in the process.Easy to say take their money to pay. But, why not raise taxes on everybody? If these programs are so great, and they are legitimate expenses/functions of the government- why shouldn’t everyone be bearing the costs more directly? Maybe if everyone’s taxes went up significantly people would take a closer look at what our government is buying and demand greater fiscal accountability.I would never go into business with someone where I put up 90% of the money and give them control of the company. But that’s what we’ve done. The majority of the citizens contributing the least are forcing the minority to bear the burden to provide more and more government services. It’s now to the point where Repubs & Dems shield their business buddies from the consequences of bad decisions. They make the folks who made good decisions bear the costs of their competitors who were foolish. All from this attitude that it’s ok for the majority to take the miniority’s money. We can always force the ‘richies’ to pay because we can rationalize what we consider fair for them to hold onto out of what they’ve created, vice considering what a government should be provide that justifies taking property.I’ll leave you with two quotes:”Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” –Benjamin Franklin”The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism”, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.” …”I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform.” 1944, Norman Mattoon Thomas, 6 time Socialist Party Presidential Candidate.

Lib MBA,You are just proof that you can go to school for a very long time and not learn anything-just like our naive President. You should ask for your money back.Nobel prizes go to anti-American left wing nuts like Paul Krugman, Jimmy Carter and Yassar Arafat.Art Laffer doesn’t even take credit for the curve. He was just illustrating a basic economic truth. But let’s prove it: we’ll just take 100% of YOUR income. You’re not even sharp enough to differentiate between taxes and tax RATES.

Let me see now, Obama is a Democrat, Democrats have ruined the State of California, where I live, in spite of the fact that we have among the highest taxes in the U.S. Now they are fighting Governor Schwarzenegger to tax the citizens more. That’s MY REASON FOR WHY OBAMA WILL PROBABLY HIKE TAXES ON THE MIDDLE CLASS. HE’S A DEMOCRAT. CASE CLOSED.P.S. This emphatically does not mean I’m endorsing the Republican Party, which is as corrupt to the core, as are the Democrats. It’s just that the Democrats make a habit of trying to screw the middle class the first chance they get. Like the Republicans, they never seem to bother the rich.

P.S. I forgot to add in my last post, why doesn’t Obama tax Hank Paulsen, Goldman Sachs, and the rest of the scum on Wall Street who make hundreds of billions of dollars shuffling paper around and gambling with Americans money.(OPM) No, he won’t do that.

Brad,Don’t forget that the increase in taxes affects everyone who puts money at risk trying to make more money. It’s not the CEOs that are the issue. The CEOs income is a sure thing, he doesn’t have an incentive to turn down income- but he’s not risking anything to get more.It’s the venture captitalists, small business owners, and investors that are the concern. And yes. Increasing the tax rates discourages risk taking. The question is, what rate is the break point? At a 70% tax rate, there’s not much incentive to risk your own money just to give Uncle Sam the majority of the profit. At 5% there’s a huge incentive to take the risk since you’ll get the vast majority of the profit. But, will they still take the risk at 10%, 20%, 45%? Now throw in that the government wants them to take the risk for job creation, income taxes on the jobs, increased economic activity, improvements in local economies, worker benefits provided etc. All in additon to the potential for Federal Revenues.From a small business owner perspective, at what income tax rate will you be willing to use your house as collateral for a business loan for that great idea of yours, knowing that 80% of small businesses fail? Will you risk it if Uncle Sam will take 20% of your profit? How about 50%?For a venture capitalist, what profit do you need to make to risk your money? Again, most ventures will fail. When does it become not worth it to risk your money?Or the stock market. Should we raise capital gains? Given the volatility over the last few years, will you invest in companies via stocks if the government will take 60% of the gain? 15%? What’s the magic number? Remember, the government isn’t going to cover your losses. The government has an interest in the stock market doing well, not just to capitalize companies and spur economic activity, but also as a backstop to Social Security. That seniors will have income and resources available to make them less of a burden on the government.

.You need to take the reward off of how much you own, and how much money you have. Take pride that you have a chance to participate in better living for all of man kind, not just yourself and those dearest to you.The hardest of the working citizens in this country don’t have a higher education, and they are responsible for feeding you, and keeping your habitat livable. Show some gratitude.

[…] Pethokoukis: There are five reasons that Obama will tax the middle class. The president won’t tell you what they are, but I will. 3 […]

Posted by Viral Stash Financial News &raquo; James Pethokoukis: There are five reasons that Obama will tax the middle class. The president won&#8217;t tell you what they are, but I will. | Report as abusive

Aug 4, 2009

2:28 am UTC

It will be easy for the Democrats to pull off.Step 1. Raise middle class taxes.Step 2. Blame the previous administration.Step 3. Sit back and bask in the applause.Think the voters will fall for it? Of course they will. After all, they fell for Obama.

[…] C’mon, how about some Walter Mondalesque candor from the Obama White House on taxes? Yes, yes, it was 25 years ago this summer that the Democratic presidential candidate self-immolated on the issue at his party’s convention in San Francisco. But surely Americans have become more urbane and sophisticated since then as to what makes for sound economic policy, oui? […]

The ‘innovative’ idea of a ‘pay for value / outcome’ pack came after the CBO had previously pointed out this health care reform wouldn’t work without ‘fundamental’ change in the out of date system. It is said that as much as 30 percent of all health-care spending in the U.S. -some $700 billion a year- may be wasted on tests and treatments that do not improve the health of the recipients, and this 700 billion dollars a year can cover a lot of uninsured people.The expected Benefits of this ‘innovative idea’ are as follows ;1. Meet the objective of revenue-neutral.Supporters of the agreement say it could save the Medicare System more than $100 billion a year and ‘improve’care, that means more than $1trillian over next decade, and virtually needs no other resources including tax on thewealthiest. Supposedly even the ‘conservative’ number of such savings might be able to meet the objective ofrevenue-neutral.2. Quality and affordability.If you are a physician, and your pay is dependant upon your patient’s outcome, you will most likely strive toprescribe the best medicine earlier in the process, let alone skipping the wasteful, unnecessary treatments.3. No intervention in decision-making.The innovative idea of ‘a pay for outcome’ will more likely prompt team approach and decision, as at Myo clinic.Under the ‘pay for outcome’ pack, for good reason, best practices as ‘recommendations’ would simply help themmake a better decision, and the government won’t still have to meddle in the final, actual decision-makingprocess as a non-expert.4. Speed up the introduction of IT SYSTEM.The pay for ‘Outcome’ pack is most likely to expedite the introduction of Health Care IT SYSTEM.The synergy effect of the combined Health Care IT & a pay for ‘outcome’ system may allow the clinicians to’correctly’ diagnose and effectively treat a patient earlier in the process so that it can measurably scale back thecrushing lawsuits and deter the excuse for unnecessary cares to make fortunes.5. Accelerate the progress in medical science, in return, it saves more cash.6. Settle the regional disparity.7. Reduce the emergency room visits & save immense costs.Public health insurance plans such as Medicare and Medicaid paid for more than 40 percent of U.S. emergencyroom visits in 2006, according to government figures released recently. Many experts say reducing these hospitalvisits would be an important way to lower the enormous, and growing, expense of U.S. health care.I share the opinion that unlike the insurer-friendly senate plan by ‘some’ members, only a strong public option will be capable of getting the premium inflation under control and saving the U.S in turbulence.To my knowledge, a dual system tends to deliver better results than a pure single payer system. Supposedly, to be or not to be might be up to the innovations like a pay for value program, otherwise, the forthcoming start-ups may fill the void with competitive deals. The competition based on ‘fair’ market value would be a beauty of true capitalism, not monopoly, an objective for anti-trust.Thank You !

Your article had made me to think twice or thrice to make comments.Now, everybody,especially from educated class,economists,social thinkers and those who interests on day today happenings in the world have to accept probable taxes on middle class Americans.If any social economy to grow,all these form of taxes are painful necessities and to be accepted for nation upswing

I’m already getting soaked by the AMT and make less than 250,000. So it really doesn’t matter to me. Since nobody will touch the AMT with a 10 foot pole, a raise in someone else’s taxes works as some perverse sort of fairness, and, hey misery loves company.

When will the Kool-Aid drinkers here hoping/wishing for higher taxes on the “rich” realize there aren’t enough rich to go around. YOUR taxes are going to go up to! The “rich”, who own the businesses you or your friends & family work for are going to pass on the higher taxes to YOU in the form of higher prices for their goods or services provided (ever manage a P&L?), or YOUR job will simply go away!It’s is simply amazing how this supposed intellect, who never ran a business nor had a real job, can be entrusted to run a Country just based on the fact he can read a teleprompter, and is cool. Ridiculous.

Some of the biggest proponents of the health care reform are people who have been in congress for over 25 years and think they that know better than the rest of us. If your congressman has been in office that long you can’t tell me somebody better hasn’t come along to replace him with? People like Rangle, Waxman, Frank need to go and get some fresh blood into Congress. Until that happens, nothing is going to change (same for the Republicans).

Bryan from NYC said selfish WHITE liberals……Uhmm yea was that a race commit thrown out????? You need to recheck yourself before you start throwing race into this matter our president is black… I was reading the commits and many had great points but when I got to Bryan’s I just had to ask…… Take care all…

Pay to play. When a rising tide does not float all boats then a little intervention is needed. This is a social contract not socialism or liberalism. Yes you can live like a king in America…I don’t have to kiss your ring. Yes we dems are tax and spend types unlike the spend all you can borrow leave the bill for tommorow repugs. Repugs posture, threats have been made here to start a class war. If you were a good king you would not have anything to worry about…but no you have to act like a 3 or 12 year old. Money is like water in that the body can use only so much before it is returned to the system. If you kings don’t let it go the thirsty will take it anyway. James P is a REPUG-BOT.

what do you expect of the president and his clique who never made a penny on their own and only spent someone else’s money? Also, there are $ power behind him that propelled him to the current position and continues manipulating his policies for their own gain … (fill in the blanks, since we can only run guesses at this time). I wonder who wants to ruin this country…

[…] 5 reasons why Obama will raise taxes on the middle class… The biggest thing that aggravates me about all of this is the stench of lies. I remember Techie pointing me to Obama’s web site during the campaign in order to find out how all of this was going to take place, and no new taxes on middle class, blah blah blah… As if I were supposed to believe it. It’s a LIE. I didn’t believe it then, and I’m certain that huge taxes are coming. If he’s elected a second time, it will be devastating to us economically, as our tax burden will be Carter-esque. __________________ “Eat shit, coppers. That’s how I roll!” – Joseftu […]

This article is all speculation. Nice job scaring people James! Taxes on the middle class NO, Taxes on the rich YES. Obam has no reason to tax the middle class and every reason to tax the wealthy. Taxing the wealthy is much more likely!

I seem to recall a strong America that had a top tax rate of 90% or so. Laffer curve can work with this but look at this: There were a few billionares and quite a few millionares, and some who hit it rich in spite of a tax rate not meant to punnish success but to keep financial success from becoming a base for taking the power of the electorate for itself. Unbridled, raw capitalism tanks periodically. Regulated (by simple tax rates) society is insulated from capitalists failures because enterprises stop accumulating wealth when it makes sense.Bring back a high top rate and we wont have to be concerned about BONUS-GATE or class warfare. However, to end the ridiculous class warfare debate/possibility a retroactive tax to 1998 or so might be in order. That way the richies can’t fund their own standing armies.Whew…problem solved. The poor looking for the government tit get the government zit while the rich looking for same have swiming pools filled with government milk. DO NOT BE FOOLED.

[…] revenue to the government (see “Zombie Government”) by both Obama and the Democrats, according to James Pethokoukis. He lists 5 reasons why Obama will raise taxes on everyone: 1) Obama knows the budget math […]

Listen up folks — THE GOVERNMENT HAS NO MONEY! It only has OUR money which it redistributes poorly, inefficiently, and to the politicians own advantage at a pay scale greatly exceeding their worth compared to the private sector. When the government starts spending on real needs, efficiently, with integrity, at a pay scale commensurate with the rest of us, then perhaps we can discuss tax increases.

Hopefully the children of the posters on this board will get it because clearly very few of you do.Democrat=RepublicanRepublican=Democra tIf ANYONE on this comment board wants to debate with me on the subject I’d be happy to, for every one difference you provide I’ll provide you with ten similarities.

Mr. Pethokoukis wrote a lot of words, but failed to explain why deficit spending has to be curbed by raising taxes on those making less than $250,000. I wonder if he really believes that we can’t close the budget deficit simply by raising taxes on those that make over $250,000 a year.As far a cutting spending, it’s a no-brainer: Government spending needs to increase until growth returns. This is simple economics and it’s not like we don’t have a model to prove it. A little something called the Great Depression. Also a great model on why is it beneficial to raise taxes on the wealthy.I find it incredible that VAT is even mentioned as a possible Obama policy. VAT, or any type of sales tax, is a regressive policy (a greater tax burden on the poor as a percentage of income). Obama has very clearly stated that he supports a progressive tax policy (greater tax burdens on the rich). Is it the increase in cigarette taxes that makes Mr. Pethokoukis believe Obama wants VAT? It certainly is true that, on the face of it, the increase is regressive, but I’d argue that the disincentive to smoke would ultimately lead to long term savings for those affected by the tax. But, I guess I’m stretching here.Okay, Mr. Pethokoukis, I guess you are right. Obama is going to raise taxes on all middle class Americans through massive cigarette taxes. It seems there is no way to avoid Obama’s tax tyranny.

Since Canada has been criticized a few times here, let’s just ask why they are ahead in EVERY health indicator while spending much less per person when compared to the US? It’s not without its faults but contrary to the right-wing propaganda Canadians as a whole are very happy with their socialized health care system. As for taxes, I’m as against bloated gov’t bureaucracy and productivity disincentives as the next guy, but there must be some kind of “big picture” balance here. If you think that the growing income inequality isn’t a problem I suggest you are sorely mistaken.

[…] 5 reasons why Obama will hike middle-class taxes By James Pethokoukis, Reuters C’mon, how about some Walter Mondalesque candor from the Obama White House on taxes? Yes, yes, it was 25 years ago this summer that the Democratic presidential candidate self-immolated on the issue at his party’s convention in San Francisco. […]

[…] This chap placed an observative post today on James Pethokoukis Blog Archive 5 reasons why Obama will hike …Here’s a quick excerptI don’t like dirty streets, and old and antiquated transportation infrastructure, and sick elderly people living in misery, and dilapidated schools, and poorly maintained public parks. It’s true that quality public goods require a … […]

Materialist Analysis of the Obama RegimePART 1: Abolishing Social Security and “Healthcare Overhaul”Obama is Nothing But a Right-Wing Black Being Provided ContantLEFT-COVER by Republicans and a Huge Capitalist Media Pump asObama Begins to Lose Credibility Among his Constituencies!How and Why the Demagogue OBama Was Elected President! SinceWatergate the Outcomes of All Presidential Elections have beenRigged in Advance By Agreement between the Candidates!The capitalist dictatorship of millionaires and billionaires required a Democrat to win the presidency in 2008 because it could not achieve its reactionary objectives with Bush and the Republicans who had very little credibility because of those very reactionary objectives. Obama was elected in order to ram down our throats the Fascist policies which Bush could not implement because Bush was opposed by all Democratic Party constituencies which form the bulk of the U.S. population and was the most hated and despised president in all U.S. history, followed closely by Ronald Reagan. The capitalist dictatorship calculates that because Obama campaigned as supposedly being “opposed to Bush” and that because he was able to get “elected” using such insultingly deceptive nebulous slogans such as “Change We Can Believe In” and “Yes We Can” and believe that Obama’s supporters are so stupid and so ignorant that they will not mind or not notice that his policies once in office are worse than those of George Bush! Obama’s policies are in fact far to the right of Bush and leave Bush in the dust! Since taking office Obama has reversed virtually all of his “anti-Bush” campaign promises with the exception of a few minor conciliatory gestures to his Democratic constituencies. Obama’s role is to string people along while carrying out policies which are a continuation of the “Bush” policies, which simply represent the one-way dynamic of capitalism. See below.Obama has continued all of the Bush Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and has continued the U.S./NATO military exercises right on the border of Georgia and the build-up of the Georgian military in preparation for further provocations and yet another possible invasion of South Ossetia/Russia. In addition, Obama is conditioning the U.S. masses to accept the planned bombing of Iran by the U.S. Proxy, so-called “Israel,” despite the combined National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that Iran had ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and the fact that Iran has NOT enriched ANY of its uranium to bomb-grade level and the report that Iran had even ended its enrichment program entirely in May 2009! (Associated Press, August 25, 2009) The Iran “nuclear threat” is another false Bush-type “Weapons of Mass Destruction” pretext which will be used this time to bomb Iran! The most recent fabrication of “computer file evidence” against Iran is being used to try to pressure the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) just exactly like Bush did to pressure Mohamed ElBaradei to support the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” Big Lie against Iraq! (New York Times, August 26, 2009) ElBaradei refused to go along with Bush and so far does not support this most recent Bush/Obama rubbish. Obama, usually hides behind a solid wall of denial and has continued and even accelerated virtually all the Bush programs and policies, many of which were rejected outright when first proposed by Bush including the elimination of the FUNCTION of Social Security! See below.Note: Part II will include thorough analysis of the Economic Crisis, the U.S. Swine Flu Biological Warfare Program, the Final Stage of Capitalism: Permanent War and State Terrorism, the fraudulent so-called Mideast Peace Process, U.S./Russian relations, the Bush/Obama Wars and the continued use of torture by Obama despite all denials. Part II will also include more material on Provocations and the escalating attack on all social programs and public education at the elementary school and college levelFrom the advent of imperialism, which correlates approximately from the beginning of the twentieth century every U.S. presidential administration has been to the right of the one which preceded it, whether it has been Democratic or Republican. This is due to the one-way dynamic of capitalism-imperialism which leads inexorably to Fascism, barbarism and the end of civilization The only exceptions were the administrations of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who designed the New Deal and the two New Dealers who followed him: Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. The New Deal came about only under the pressure of a million-strong Communist movement in the United States, which later disintegrated primarily because of the false and sabotaging leadership of Joseph Stalin, who was not actually a Communist, (See below) and because the U.S. government either crushed or took over the leadership of all “left” groups in the United States. Today The New Deal has been almost entirely demolished by the hardening capitalist dictatorship. Obama was elected in order to finish that demolition by first targeting Social Security where within 100 days of taking office he immediately and permanently abolished the yearly Social Security Cost-Of-Living Allowance, while simultaneously giving away 4.7 $trillion in Bank Bailouts (Associated Press, July 20, 2009), the real purpose of which was actually to DIVERT money away from social spending, thus beginning the process of terminating the primary function of Social Security: to keep older people alive! (See below.)The WorldviewToday we live in a world of nation states. All nation states are dictatorships of one class over another class, either the capitalist class over the working class or vice versa. (These are the only historically destined classes.) There is no “democracy” at the present time, not even for the capitalists themselves. Capitalism has a dynamic or development sequence of its own which at this point is almost entirely ONE-WAY. This one-way dynamic, or dialectic is largely independent of the wills of the capitalists and politicians and leads to a constantly hardening capitalist dictatorship finally to Fascism, barbarism and the end of civilization. Now, due to the beginning of the Runaway Greenhouse Effect, that means the end of all life on Earth! (See Materialist Analysis of Biofuels and the Runaway Greenhouse Effect on the Internet) Within the framework of the class dictatorship there can either be a hard or a soft dictatorship. The hard dictatorship of capitalism is known as Fascism, which has several historical variants. Today the United States is a military, bureaucratic police state, a form of capitalist dictatorship known as Rule by Decree (a form of Bonapartism), which is hardening and growing more naked by the day! Rule by Decree is a step short of Fascism. Actual Fascism requires the full and organized support of the petit-bourgeoisie (the middle class), the organization of armed gangs with specifically targeted scapegoats. The U.S. leaders are Fascists, including Obama, because they continually work to support the constantly hardening capitalist dictatorship. Capitalism is fundamentally based on war, mass murder and crime to steal new resources and new markets in order to increase private profits and today is in its Final Stage of Permanent War and State Terrorism. Politicians like Obama, and all capitalist politicians, rise to the top based on the extent which they express and further the one-way dynamic of capitalism. Communism is a stateless society, which has never been practiced and can never be practiced until capitalism is abolished worldwide beginning with a Socialist Revolution in its center—the United States.The steps required to carry out a Socialist Revolution in the United States are briefly outlined at the end of this Part I Analysis. Remember that the United States is NOT our country! It is the country of the capitalist dictatorship of billionaires and millionaires. WE JUST LIVE HERE! That means we must give no support to the U.S. military except in the case of MUTINY, when we give full support. See below. We are having class warfare waged against us as the U.S. capitalist dictatorship escalates its economic, biological and propaganda warfare against its own population and the entire world. The Working Class is NOT presently organized to fight back. Only a Socialist Revolution in the United States will make this OUR country!Given the choice, 95% of New Yorkers and the overwhelming majority of Americans agree that we need a new system based on human need not private profit. That system is Socialism and requires a Socialist Revolution in the United States, because capitalism cannot be turned into Socialism through “elections” or achieved through “election reform” such as “paper trails,” etc. or any other type of reform of capitalism. History proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Elections and “election reform” under capitalism is simply a ruse designed to permit the capitalist ownership and structure of the state to remain intact and ensure a continuation of the hardening capitalist dictatorship. “Democracy” under capitalism is simply a euphemism for capitalist dictatorship and enslavement. That is why the capitalist class must be expropriated of all of its wealth, all of which has been stolen from the Working Class through various forms of exploitation, super-exploitation and other crime. This is known as the expropriation of the expropriators and is possible only through a Socialist Revolution. The Socialist Revolution will extend globally almost simultaneously once it begins in the United States.The Socialist Revolution on the other hand does NOT involve a coup d’etat but relies primarily on patient explanation and the avoidance of provocations. Patient explanation and winning over the masses to support a new economic-political-social system involves a genuine grass roots organization. The 1917 October Russian Revolution did not take place until the Bolsheviks, the smallest political party after the February Revolution, had grown to win the support of 70% of Working Class and 30% of the peasantry, which included the all-important army which was already in MUTINY. Provocations on the other hand are invariably orchestrated and led by the capitalists themselves to both discredit the Working Class and lead it to take steps prematurely before there is the overwhelming popular support which is required to take state power. Patient explanation is necessary in order to achieve the popular support and organization necessary to end the dictatorship of billionaires and millionaires and establish a new system where everyone can actually live like a millionaire. There is more than sufficient wealth in the United States to achieve this! Remember that all of the capitalists’ wealth was originally expropriated and stolen from the labor of the Working Class—through expropriation of Surplus Value. Only after class society is abolished through a Socialist Revolution can there be free speech and genuine democracy for the Working Class and everyone else. This analysis is intended as an aid to help progressive people consciously deprogram themselves from the capitalist brainwash which targets the masses every day from every direction and to provide a basis to help organize the Socialist Revolution in the United States. Socialism will abolish the basis of all wars and set the stage for solving the entire complex of problems created by capitalism-imperialism. In the final analysis all wars are won and lost on morale and every movement begins with the call. This analysis is part of that call.THE CAPITALISTS ARE WAGING ECONOMIC WAR AGAINST US!The Obama Regime Has Already Begun to Abolish the FUNCTION ofSocial Security as a Means to Reduce the Population of Senior Citizens!On April 22, 2009 Obama Eliminated the Social Security Cost ofLiving Adjustment (COLA), while Simultaneously Giving $4.7 TrillionTo the Banks! The False Report that Social Security Will SoonBe Totally Insolvent by 2016 and Completely Depleted by 2037Indicates that the COLA Elimination Will Be Permanent!In his very first speech to a joint session of Congress on February 24, 2009 Obama demonstrated that his objectives coincided precisely with those of George Bush when he threatened to implement the George Bush “tax-free universal savings accounts for all Americans.” “Private accounts” had been widely recognized and rejected under Bush as simply a clumsy scheme to end Social Security by diverting money away from Social Security into the totally erratic stock market, where the capitalist dictatorship assumes hopefully that most of it would be lost thus bringing Senior Citizens to crushing poverty and an earlier death and thus help to reduce the “population demographic.” Obama’s first step was to begin the elimination of the FUNCTION of Social Security.On April 22, 2009 the Obama Regime eliminated the Social Security Adjustment COLA for 2010 and 2011, while simultaneously giving $4.7 trillion (!) to the banks, brokerages, insurance companies, hedge funds, groups, private equity groups and car companies. The tiny “$250 stimulus checks” sent out to Social Security recipients were strictly a one-time event used to BUY THE SILENCE of Social Security recipients in response to the Obama Regime’s elimination of the Social Security Cost of Living Allowance, which will be permanent, and in order to keep Senior Citizens CONFUSED while he takes further steps to abolish the function of Social Security and wage economic war on the masses from every conceivable angle while falsely claiming that HE has “pulled the economy back from the brink,” which he most certainly has NOT! The economy is NOT “back from the brink.” Over 30 million Americans are actually now unemployed if all categories are included. And the stock market has experienced a bear market rally through stock market manipulation achieved through 1.) new high-frequency trading programs used by the large investment banks, hedge funds, private equity groups and insurance companies and 2.) a Big Lie propaganda campaign falsely claiming that the economy is “recovering,” which it is NOT! (See below and Part II, which will be posted next.) In addition to this immediate direct reduction of Social Security Benefits the capitalist dictatorship’s so-called “Social Security Overhaul,” which is scheduled to be implemented following the so-called “Healthcare Overhaul,” will undoubtedly also include a switcheroo from wage-based indexing which is used to calculate the original Social Security Benefit amount, to price-based aka inflation-based indexing, which will also help to abolish the FUNCTION of Social Security. (See further below for an easy solution proposed by Representative Robert Wexler (D) of Florida to make Social Security solvent forever.) The capitalists still intend to retain Social Security for appearances but to use it NOT for its original purpose to keep older people alive, but primarily to maintain it as a slush fund to pay for various U.S. wars as it is already! Meanwhile as mentioned the progressive tax structure in the United States, which would eliminate ALL the financial problems associated with the funding of social programs has been permanently abolished. See below.The ONLY REASON that the Economic Crisis does not assume the form of the Great Depression is because of reforms instituted under the New Deal such as Unemployment Insurance, Social Security and the FDIC. The Obama Regime’s so-called Public-Private Investment Program, part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money supposedly to be used to buy toxic assets in the toxic derivative market which includes securitized subprime mortgages and collateralized debt obligations (see below), is to be backed by the $700 billion bank bailout fund, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp! The FDIC!!! Whaaaat? The FDIC is what backs the individual accounts of private in banks to $100,000, now supposedly $250,000. But government claims of insuring individual accounts by the FDIC are all fiction in the first place. But so far the banks have not wanted to sell their toxic assets. See below. If there were actual bank runs as in the 1930s Great Depression there would be no money at all for most Americans! (See below.) There would be a total collapse of the U.S. standard of living and poverty greater than in the Great Depression! Buying back toxic assets by the U.S. government is yet one more PHONY PRETEXT to divert money from social spending and demolish what remains of the New Deal.This analysis was confirmed on August 11, 2009 when it was reported in the New York Times: ”The nation’s banks continue to hold on their books billions of dollars in assets about whose proper valuation there is a dispute (?) and that are very difficult to sell. As a result, many banks could find themselves short of capital if the economy suffered another downturn and their losses on troubled loans soared. Based on the results of the so-called stress tests in April 2009 the report stated that 18 of the 19 biggest bank holding companies would probably have enough capital even if economic and financial conditions deteriorated more than they have already. The report warned that thousands of small and medium-size banks, which it defined as those with assets of $600 million to $100 billion, might find themselves short a total of $21 billion if the conditions matched its worst-case assumptions. (Parenthesis and emphasis added.)The Explanation of the Big Lie Technique:While following the moves of the Obama Regime and the media it is important to understand the Big Lie Technique. There are 2 parts to the Big Lie: 1.) The first part of the Big Lie is that the lie must be BIG, because most people only tell little lies and are entirely unprepared for a Big Lie. 2.) The second part of the Big Lie Technique is to repeat the lie over and over again from every media source even including textbooks and movies until it is accepted as truth or accepted at least as partly true, when it is most invariably entirely false. In addition, lies may be lies of commission or lies of omission. They are equally unacceptable. The media is a privatized arm of the U.S. “intelligence agency,” a vast army of legions of professional liars working in service to the capitalist dictatorship. The U.S. media is very similar to Blackwater, Dyncorp, Custer Battles and Triple Canopy, etc. the armed military contractors in Iraq, except that the media has always been privatized.The OBAMA BANK BAILOUTS were thus both 1.) unnecessary and 2.) unwanted by the banks and have had NO part in any falsely claimed “green shoots/economic recovery” which has NOT occurred despite the capitalist dictatorship’s Big Lie propaganda campaign to the contrary! The reasons that the banks said that the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money was unnecessary is that the banks simply wrote off the TOXIC ASSETS off their books by scrapping mark-to-market accounting thus making the toxic assets supposedly NONTOXIC. (!?) For real!! The banks have even steadfastly refused to sell their toxic assets to the U.S. Treasury Department insisting that the prices offered were too low and that they would take “the long view” and wait. The bank bailouts were also unwanted because those banks which accepted TARP money had to agree to conform to any new financial regulations or laws. Demonstrating once more that he is simply the corrupt puppet of the banks and the capitalist dictatorship of billionaires and millionaires, Obama announced that he had allowed the 10 largest banks to escape future reforms and regulations simply by repaying only $68.3 billion, which represents only a quarter of the $239.4 billion Bank Bailout money they have received (!), and thereby exit the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)!In addition, instead of DELAYING GOVERNMENT ACCEPTANCE of these piddling repayments until the supposedly “broad regulatory reform proposals were announced in another week” or however long it might have taken to be passed by Congress, Obama accepted the money early in order that those 10 largest banks would NOT have to submit to any serious banking regulation or oversight or salary caps! (New York Times, June10-11, 2009). Those banks have been allowed to keep the remainder of the $239.4 billion, TARP money which is simply stolen, primarily from the working class, money which has been brazenly and deliberately diverted away from social programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the new “Healthcare Overhaul” and public education thus serving the same economic/political purpose as Supply-Side economics. And it should be noted that $4.7 trillion have been turned over to the banks NOT $merely $billions! See below. As an indication that the large banks are fully in the loop and understand that the U.S. economy is to be deliberately permitted to contract in accordance with Globalism and in order to reduce a “redundant work force” and reduce the overall population, the banks are NOT EVEN LENDING TO SMALL BUSINESS or individuals using either the bank bailouts OR Obama “stimulus” money ($255 million) expressly directed to the Small Business Administration! (New York Times, August 13, 2009) The masses, who have no representation under capitalism, and who have been inoculated against Socialism—the only solution to the entire complex of problems which have been created by capitalism—are expected to simply nod their heads “OK” in passive brainwashed acceptance.The enemy of my enemy is my friend and the friend of my enemy is my enemy. This is inductive reasoning, the reasoning of science. We should not forget that our greatest enemy is the capitalist dictatorship of millionaires and billionaires. The Town Hall protests against the Obama Healthcare Overhaul have been taken over by the Republicans and other assorted Fascists with heavy media focus on shills, plants who carry signs and scream that they oppose “Obama socialism,” “communist-fascism” and “government take-over of medicine,” slogans designed to keep the masses confused (Because a confused person cannot act!), while actually supporting Obama Care which completely turns over all medical care to the insurance companies and HMOs! Obama Care has nothing to do with Socialized Medicine and is indeed an example of medical Fascism not Socialism. The bulk of those attending the town hall meetings are actually opposed to the private insurance/HMOs and would support the so-called Single-Payer Health Plan, which is socialized medicine. But so far unfortunately the present correlation of class forces, where the capitalist dictatorship is still much stronger than the unorganized forces of the Working Class and its allies, permits the U.S. masses to be easily misled and manipulated against their own best interests.The Real Purpose of the So-called “Obama Healthcare Overhaul” is toAbolish Medicare and Medicaid by Cutting $400-$500 Billion of “Savings” fromThose Government Programs to “Help Pay” for the $1.6 Trillion “Obama PlanWhile Turning Over All Healthcare to the Insurance Companies and HMOsUnder the False Slogan of “Healthcare for All”!The Capitalist Dictatorship intends to Escalate Economic Warfare AgainstThe Working Class and the Poor! The Objective is to Reduce the PopulationBy Denying and Rationing Healthcare in Order to Bring People to an EarlierDeath! Any “Public Option” Will be Designed to Profit from HumanIllness and Disease Just Like the Private Insurance/HMO Parasites!Re-introduction of a Progressive Tax Structure Would Easily Pay Entirely forSingle-Payer Government Run Health Care and Pay for Social Security ForeverBut the One-Way Dynamic of Capitalism Prevents This! Socialism is the Answer!The real purpose of the Obama “Overhaul” is to turn over all healthcare to the insurance companies and HMOs while ending the government programs of Medicare and Medicaid by cutting $400 billion to $500 billion in “savings” from those programs, which the capitalist dictatorship will eventually simply abolish and fold into “Obama Care” in order to eliminate the complaints that “Medicare and Medicaid are not working.” That way there will be no Medicare and Medicaid in practice and no more complaints! Hey, what’s not to like? The reality is that the so-called “savings” which will be due to the Obama Regime’s cuts from Medicare and Medicaid will actually cause these complaints! Demonstrating once again Obama is not afraid to lie right to the face of his victims Obama stated at a town-hall type meeting organized by the treacherous AARP Obama claimed: “Nobody is talking about cutting Medicare benefits.” (New York Times, July 29, 2009)) Cutting Medicare Benefits is EXACTLY what the Obama Regime intends to do! Obama has frequently promised to “rein in spending on retirement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.” (New York Times, January 8, 2009). In another Big Lie the Obama Regime announced: “it would not try to cut the short-term deficits until the economy recovers enough that businesses and consumers resume their spending and investment.” (New York Times, August 26, 2009) But the economy will NOT recover and CAN not recover unless the government institutes huge Federal Jobs Programs equivalent to 37% of GDP, which is the only possible way to sufficiently stimulate DEMAND, the engine of the economy, and permit the economy to recover. Instead the plan by the capitalist dictatorship of millionaires and billionaires is to deliberately allow the economy to contract according to the dynamic of Globalism! See below. The Obama Regime obviously intends simply at some point to declare that “the Great Recession” (the word Depression is never used) is over and that will be the signal to “cut short-term deficits.” On July 31, 2009 the government reported that the GDP was negative for the 4th successive quarter! Officially it takes 6 negative quarters of GDP growth to define a depression. But the capitalists will falsify numbers as they already do in order to never permit that truth to appear. The truth is that without large-scale Federal jobs programs the equivalent of New Deal/WWII spending to the level of 37% of GDP there will be NO recovery! Period! The economy will simply continue to contract. See further below.Meanwhile the false “Grandma Death Panels” issue is a deliberately designed but easily discredited distraction used to divert focus away from this central objective of eliminating Medicare and Medicaid in practice as part of the “Healthcare Overhaul” and turning everything over to the insurance companies and HMOs. And the reason that Obama has delayed naming a new head for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is because the Obama Regime does NOT want ANY focus on Medicare and Medicaid or anyone speaking in support of those government programs, which Obama has now scheduled for huge cuts and eventual elimination. In fact the reason that Obama had filled only 43% of his top policy making positions by September 2009 (New York Times, August 24, 2009), which he could easily get confirmed by his Democratically controlled Congress, is that the Obama Regime wants to appear weak and unable to function and this would not be possible if those policy positions were filled and those new Democratic Party policy chiefs were out there speaking forcefully and building support for a genuine “the Public Option,” for example!In other words not everyone can be brought into confidence on the reversal of all the anti-Bush campaign promises. It should also be noted that whenever possible Obama tries to appoint Republicans rather than Democrats to key policy-making positions thus further undermining the voters’ will! During his campaign Obama promised that “everything is on the table” in reforming health care. As soon as he was elected Obama stated that “The Single-Payer Health Plan,” where the government, rather than the insurance companies/HMOs, directly pay the healthcare providers was “OFF THE TABLE.” Social Security, Medicare and the Veterans’ Administration are the most popular government programs, where the government makes NO actual medical decisions, and could EASILY be paid for by re-instituting a Progressive Tax Structure in the United States! See below. Obama is for all intents and purposes nothing but a (technically) Black Bush! “Technically Black” is a description used by the Black Panther Party to describe someone like Obama. Obama is “Black” like Kindasleezy Rice is “Black” or like Colin Powell is “Black” or like Clarence Thomas is “Black” or like “Black” news anchors and commentators are “Black.” That’s not Black! Black is Malcom X, Martin Luther King Junior, preferably after he finally took a position against the Vietnam War in April 1967, and of course the Black Panther Party and especially its leaders, Mark Clark and Fred Hampton. Fred Hampton said that the answer to white capitalism was NOT Black capitalism. The answer is Socialism!Obama Immediately Abandoned His Support for the Single-Payer HealthPlan which He only Used to Con Support from Democratic ConstituenciesIn Order to Get Elected and then Turn Everything over to the HMOs!Those Who Already have Coverage are “Not Eligible” for any Public Plan!Obama quickly reversed his position and opposed outright support for Single-Payer because it is a fact that a government plan PAID FOR ENTIRELY BY THE GOVERNMENT would indeed compete with and COMPLETELY REPLACE the insurance companies and HMOs and REDUCE the cost of healthcare! Obama and the Democrats’ previous support for Single-Payer Socialized Medicine, which was supported by the overwhelming majority of the U.S. population, was done ONLY in order to SUCK PEOPLE IN and then twice employed the BAIT AND SWITCH, first by offering the Public Option to compete with the insurance companies. Then when it became clear that even the conservative so-called “Blue Dog” Democrats would not support ANY healthcare legislation which included the Public Option, the Obama Regime announced that the final so-called “Healthcare Overhaul” legislation will turn over healthcare lock stock and barrel to the insurance companies and HMOs and that a Public Plan was “NOT essential!” Pressure from the masses and some liberal Democratic Party leaders may force some sort of a “Public Plan,” but those who already have healthcare coverage are NOT eligible for the Public Plan, and despite Obama’s talk of “healthcare exchanges” switching from one insurance company to another would NOT be permitted and has no support in Congress and is strongly opposed by Labor Unions, employers, hospitals and drug companies. (New York Times, 26, 2009) The scenario is to pass such an onerous “Healthcare Overhaul” bill and let Obama take the blame early in his administration and use the media to try to deflect that blame from Obama and the capitalist dictatorship.But there is no reason whatsoever why healthcare should be permitted to exist as a BUSINESS in the first place where insurance companies “compete” for PROFITS at the people’s expense while parasitizing off human illness and disease! Free healthcare should be a right and it is in a Socialist system in fully consolidated Workers’ States! Even in some capitalist systems! Although the insurance companies use the term “private” to try to make its largely Working Class victims think they are receiving “exclusive” or “special” healthcare coverage, the truth is that “special” is one more 1984 Orwellian Newspeak/Big Lie deception. “Private” insurance actually means big time PRIVATE PROFITS for the insurance companies and HMO billionaires! “Private” insurance means NO CHOICE for the its “customers”/victims because insurance companies make their HUGE PROFITS primarily by limiting medical care and by denying and rejecting every conceivable treatment, test and surgery sometimes even for emergencies! In order to cover up this fact Obama promises that the insurance companies will not be allowed to deny coverage based on previous medical history or a pre-existing condition. That’s all! BUT HEALTHCARE RATIONING WILL SUBSTANTIALLY INCREASE UNDER THE OBAMA HEALTHCARE OVERHAUL! Healthcare rationing will increase under ANY version of Obama Care! And in many cases, despite Obama’s false denials, and promises of “subsidies” people living on the edge will either be forced to buy healthcare insurance which they can not afford or be fined! See below.Obama Cut a Secret George Bush-Type Deal With the Pharmaceutical IndustryThat Prevents the U.S. Government from Negotiating for Lower Drug PricesObama made a dirty deal with the pharmaceutical industry (PhRMA) first revealed on June 20, 2009 the exact same sort of deal made by George Bush where in exchange for Obama’s promise 1.) not to permit the new Obama Healthcare Overhaul System to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs and 2.) not to permit additional rebates from drug manufacturers, the drug companies agreed to contribute $80 billion in “savings” over 10 years. The $80 billion in “savings” from the drug companies is NOTHING compared to the annual $300 billion profits of the drug companies which total $2.4 trillion over the same 10 years! And that is why the drug companies are running a $150 million ad campaign pushing Obama Care! The $80 billion would apply ONLY to those Medicare patients with Bush Medicare Part D who fall into a gap in their drug coverage known as the “doughnut hole” and only applies for brand name drugs thus ruling out use of the much cheaper generic drugs. The “doughnut hole” is the area that falls between the less than $2,700 and the more than $5,100 Medicare will pay for seniors’ prescription drugs. Anything in between, seniors are supposed to pay themselves but in practice many seniors are simply forced to stop taking their medications. They die quicker! Some Democrats such as Henry Waxman are now going through the motions of trying to recover a comparatively tiny amount in rebates from the drug companies of the $billions paid since 2003 for name brand drugs rather than generic equivalents. (New York Times, August 26, 2009) As explained in a 2003 New York Times Op-Ed, the PURPOSE of the 2003 Bush’s Medicare Part D prescription drug plan, which cost $678 billion over 10 years and prevented the federal government from negotiating lower prices from drug companies, and was to help put Medicare on the road to bankruptcy, saving the final coup de grace for the next Democratic president. And here comes Obama to finish the job with Medicare “savings!” Note that the Medicare Trust fund will indeed be “exhausted” by 2017 right on schedule according to a Trustees report! (Healthcare Finance News, May 19, 2009) But there is a way to get rid of the insurance companies/HMOs and brand name drugs and pay for everything easily. Simply re-institute a Progressive Tax Structure in the United States. See below! But capitalism cannot be genuinely reformed or turned back into New Deal liberalism because of the one-way dynamic of capitalism. That is why we need a Socialist Revolution in the Unite States.A “Public Plan” Will Also Offer NO Choice Whatsoever becauseIt Will ALSO Be Based Primarily On Profits NOT Patient Health!Obama and the U.S. Congress are ALL merely puppets of the insurance companies and HMO’s and it is therefore now obvious that the Obama Regime intends to use “HEALTHCARE OVERHAUL” as the pretext to END the government plans known as Medicare and Medicaid in practice by simply cutting their funding to help pay for “Obama Care.” The controversy over the “Public Plan” is being used as a diversion from this reality which leaves the private health insurance business completely intact and increases their business astronomically! Because of the fact that a genuine Public Plan would indeed replace all private insurance plans because it would NOT be based on profit, “Chucky Boy” Schumer came up with a trick to deceive the masses for whom he has only total contempt. “Chucky Boy” Schumer wrote a “compromise public healthcare plan which would abide by the same rules and regulations as private plans” designed to start off with start-up government funding and initially to be 20% to 30% cheaper than the “private plans” but then eventually to change to be PROFITABLE AND EXPLOITIVE JUST LIKE THE PRIVATE PLANS. That ignores the question that if the public plan and the private plans would really abide by the exact same rules, what is the point of a public plan in the first place? Would the U.S. population agree to be so deceived? Even such an amended Schumer plan where the “Public Plan” would be temporarily only slightly less profitable and therefore only slightly cheaper (20% to 30%) than the private HMOs was rejected by the Republicans and rightwing Democrats, who simultaneously 1.) provide Obama with LEFT COVER with his own constituencies by hilariously labeling him a “socialist” and 2.) move the entire political process to the right! Alternative “nonprofit consumer-owned cooperatives” have even been offered as an alternative to a public plan. But healthcare cooperatives are a sham and are also run by the insurance companies! It should be noted that “Chucky Boy” Schumer was the author of the Fascist repressive Patriot Act (reportedly nearly half written by the time of the 911 U.S. Government-Facilitated Provocation by in-the-loop Chucky. See below.)The Democrats Proposal for a Tiny 1% Surcharge on Individual Incomes MakingOver $280,000 and on Couples Making Over $350,000 is a JOKE and Is No SubstituteFor Reintroduction of a New Deal Type Progressive Tax Structure in the United States!The answer is that supposedly trying to “reduce healthcare costs” is all a diversion! Obama and the entire Congress are all paid off by the insurance companies/HMO’s, banks, oil companies and military industrial complex. Any healthcare plan that emerges will be run by the parasite insurance companies and HMOs, just like the present state plans, which have also been disingenuously offered as an alternative to a public plan to try to keep people confused! A confused person cannot act! As mentioned the Obama Regime’s healthcare plan will be paid for largely by “savings” (!) by cutting Medicare payments to hospitals and also by taxing the healthcare benefits of those who already have healthcare! But NEVER by seriously taxing the rich! The request by the Democrats in the House for a TINY surcharge beginning only in 2011 (!) starting at 1% on individuals making over $280,000 and couples making over $350,000, with slight increases at incomes of over $400,000 and $800,000, or even a 1% surtax ONLY on those making over $1 million, is not even meant to pay for healthcare entirely and is strongly opposed in the Senate, which since the New Deal and starting with the John Kennedy administration, has completely eliminated the progressive tax structure which used to exist in the United States. The House also protects the millionaires and billionaires and is simply going through the motions!It should be noted that even this tiny 1% surtax on the incomes of the capitalists themselves would raise $550 billion over 10 years! This is about a third of the $1.6 trillion needed for 10 years according to the Obama Regime. (The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the cost of the “Healthcare Overhaul” will be $1.6 trillion not $1 trillion!) But $550 billion is a small amount compared to the $4.7 trillion which has already been permanently turned over to the banks in the bank bailouts! As mentioned, the remainder of “the cost of healthcare” is to come from regressive taxes and “savings” primarily from Medicare/Medicaid. Obviously a 3% Surtax would ENTIRELY pay for any “Healthcare overhaul” and would entirely pay for a Single-Payer Government run Healthcare Plan—Socialized Medicine. But capitalism can not be reformed and made better because of the one-way dynamic of capitalism described above! The reality remains: 95% of New Yorkers and presumably the majority of Americans when given the choice agree that we need a new system based on human need not private profit! That is a Communist response although few would presently describe themselves as Communist. But it means that the majority of Americans would be receptive to Socialism right now! The overwhelming majority of the American people want Socialized Medicine and when polled honestly they choose Socialism and recognize that capitalism has failed. The contradiction is that the U.S. Working Class is presently so deliberately misinformed, misled, divided, disorganized, demoralized, intimidated, infantalized and so brainwashed on every conceivable basis that they are prevented from engaging in any sort of organized effective action on the basis of their own class interest because of the present correlation of class forces, where the capitalists are still too strong. (See below.) But this will not last forever because capitalism is on the road to economic collapse NOT “recovery.” See below.Fines For Not Being Covered by the “Healthcare Overhaul” AreExpected to Raise at least $52 Billion as Capitalism DRAINS US DRY!The capitalist dictatorship also intends to make the masses pay for Obama Care primarily through “mandates” which target individuals and small business, meaning that those who are uninsured must now either buy health insurance or be fined to further impoverish them! These fines alone are expected to “raise (at least) $52 billion to cover the costs of the uninsured (!).” (New York Times, August 13, 2009) The Obama “Healthcare Overhaul” is also to be paid for by regressive taxation as mentioned above targeting primarily the Working Class—not the “middle class”—and “savings” (cuts in other social programs) rather than seriously taxing the rich through legislating a New Progressive Tax Structure in the United States where the top tax rate would be over 90% like it was under the New Deal and up until the end of the Eisenhower administration during the period of greatest economic prosperity in the United States! In addition ALL income should be taxed, not just the first $102,000.00 as is presently the case! (A millionaire or billionaire pays taxes ONLY on the first $102,000!) The top tax rate should be at least 90% on ALL income! The “Effective Top U.S. Federal Tax Rate” is now only 27.9%, while the Effective Tax Rate for the average taxpayer is 18.2%. (New York Times, August 28, 2009) This is almost a flat tax! See below. The capitalist dictatorship has already DRAINED US DRY and is now literally moving in for the kill. This is no exaggeration! See below. The despised Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers have also stated: “(Working Class) taxes might have to go up to pare budget deficits or to pay for the proposed overhaul of the nation’s health care system.” (Associated Press, August 3, 2009)Obama Proposed a Bush-Privatization of the VeteransAdministration within 2 Months of Taking Office!Because of the fact that the VA is socialized medicine it was initially partially de-funded by the Bush Regime and more than 20 VA hospitals were threatened with closure! Obama’s claimed “support” for the VA is a sham and a Big Lie starting with an immediate attempt announced on March 16, 2009 to begin to privatize the Veterans Administration less than one month of taking office! The Obama/Bush Regime attempted to authorize the Department of Veterans Affairs to force veterans to begin to partially pay for treating war-related injuries and other medical conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, that are war-related using private insurance companies! The pretext was supposedly to “save” the VA about $530 million a year! The overhead of the Veterans Administration Hospitals is less than 5% and the overhead for Medicare is only 2%, while the overhead of the parasite HMO/private insurance plans is 30% or more, which forms the basis for their profits! There is NO money whatsoever “saved” by privatizing the Veterans Administration or Medicare. Just the opposite! Obama is a liar and he knows he’s a liar! The Obama regime is simply maneuvering to permit private health insurers to increase their parasitizing off the misery, illness and disease of the American people! Incidentally, Veterans are already charged a privatized co-payment for non-war acquired medical conditions in order to help out the HMO parasites!Obama was immediately opposed on his privatization scheme by all veterans groups, which finally forced the new Veterans Affairs Secretary/Obama puppet Gen. Eric Shinseki to reverse his initial support for the Obama privatization plan! Previously the capitalists were able to deceive the masses domestically by throwing out a few crumbs and scraps, while the overwhelming bulk of their programs in the last several decades were deliberately designed to directly attack the lives and living standard of the majority of the American people. On June 24, 2009 after widespread criticism and increasing awareness among veterans that Obama was giving them the same treatment doled out under Bush the Congress passed legislation approving the budget for the Veteran’s Administration one year in advance to prevent the delays which had occurred for 19 of the last 22 years! Those delays combined with cutbacks were deliberately designed to cause cancellation or postponement of programs, not enough equipment, fewer doctors, longer waiting times and restricted access to healthcare for veterans causing rationing of healthcare in order to falsely discredit the Veterans Administration healthcare because it is SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!Remember that the words “reform” and “overhaul” under capitalism are simply code words for attack on the Working Class. The capitalists have now decided to escalate their attacks on the masses and have switched their gears to EXTERMINATE a significant percentage workers made “redundant,” under Globalism as well as a significant percentage of the general population both in the United States and worldwide. Globalism has rendered millions of workers redundant—no longer necessary under capitalism—and the present Economic Crisis/Second Great Depression has provided the ideal point for the U.S.-led World Capitalist Dictatorship to reduce their populations and the entire world population! The capitalists are now trumpeting their fraudulent plans for “universal health care.” This is all a deception meant to cover their primary program of extermination as described above and herein! The capitalists plan to base their “universal health insurance” on the present criminal parasite HMO insurance based health plans rather than the comparatively high quality system used by the U.S. Veterans Administration (VA), a form of socialized medicine, which is anathema to the capitalist dictatorship and their current puppet Obama. This is one more reason why we need a Socialist Revolution in the United States!The Capitalists Have Completely AbolishedThe Progressive Tax Structure of the New Deal!The progressive tax structure was completely and totally abolished starting with John Kennedy who was far to the right of the New Dealer Dwight Eisenhower. (The Kennedys hated Roosevelt and the New Deal after FDR appointed Joe Kennedy as the U.S. Ambassador to the UK at the Court of St. James, a total insult to the Irishman Kennedy, who was then later withdrawn in humiliation because of his multiple statements in support of Adolph Hitler! FDR and the Great Britain DID support Hitler both through the covert economic aid provided by U.S. capitalists and diplomatically by refusing to sign any alliance with the USSR against the NAZIs, and helped build Hitler’s rise to power in order to send the NAZIs against the USSR, in a failed attempt to destroy the USSR militarily in WWII! But that was a state secret NOT for public consumption!)JFK reduced the As mentioned from 91% under Eisenhower down to 70%! Under the Fascist Ronald Reagan the Kemp-Roth Tax-Cut of 1981 reduced the top rate from 70% to 50%! The Reagan the Tax Reform Act of 1986 led by Fascist-Democrat Bill “basketballs” Bradley lowered the top tax rate from 50% to 28%! It was later increased slightly to 39.6% under Bill Clinton and then reduced to 35% under the Bush Regime! Obama has promised to “raise” the top tax rate back to an astronomical…39.6% in another 2 years! What a joke! The joke is on you and me! As mentioned, the “Effective Top U.S. Federal Tax Rate” is now only 27.9% and that will NOT change appreciably! Abolishing the progressive tax structure of the United States has permitted the capitalist dictatorship to completely rob every last penny so that there is NO money whatsoever to pay for anything, especially Social Security and other social programs, which are derisively referred to as “entitlements” as in “who do THEY think THEY are being ENTITLED to ANTHING—why don’t they (the Working Class, their allies and the Poor) “just pull themselves by their own bootstraps” like Herbert Hoover said? But today the capitalists have other fish to fry: population reduction in the United States and worldwide. The extermination of millions of people! See above.The truth is that for all intents and purposes Obama is a (technically) “Black” Bush as explained above. The reason we know for a fact that Obama never had any intention of changing anything is that politicians rise to the top based on their ability to express and further the one-way dynamic of capitalism, a dynamic which leads to Fascism, barbarism and finally the end of civilization. This is how we know for a fact that Obama most certainly does not even want to change anything for the better despite his phony propaganda slogans to represent nebulous “change”! Now with the Runaway Greenhouse Effect having begun, this means the end of all life on Earth because capitalism intends to do nothing serious to combat Global Warming and treats that threat the very same way they “reform the economy” or “reform healthcare,” meaning they are just going through the motions. Obama understands that his role is to deceive the masses and he clearly enjoys that role! Note that the Obama propaganda never specifies what kind of “change” it is that we can believe in. “Yes we can” Obama trumpeted! Those nebulous slogans were carefully designed to say nothing! Obama’s role is to string people along and placate the masses with his “golden rhetoric” while carrying out the dismantlement of as many social programs as possible and to demolish what is left of the New Deal.The only “change” which can actually occur under Obama is the continued hardening of the capitalist dictatorship! Obama has been chosen for his ability to deceive the masses regarding that actual dynamic, development sequence and direction of capitalism. Obama is a slicker, a con man, a demagogue out to bamboozle the unsuspecting victims: the Working Class and its allies primarily. Obama’s book, “The Audacity of Hope” was written initially to demonstrate to the capitalist dictatorship that he was best able to perpetuate false hope in capitalism-imperialism. Only after he became a candidate did public curiosity increase sales enough among the duped masses to make Obama a millionaire. “Hope in capitalism” is what Jesse Jackson meant when he introduced his slogan: “Keep Hope Alive!” Much earlier Martin Luther King publicly reviled Jesse Jackson to his face with numerous witnesses as “nothing but an opportunist.” For anyone following the presidential campaign and “elections” it should have been obvious that McCain was only running as a foil to take a fall for the Democratic candidate, whoever it would be just like in TV wrestling.Progressive Taxation is Good for the Economy!Regressive Taxation is Bad for the Economy!In addition, the elimination of the Social Security Cost-of-Living will become permanent in practice with the claim of “no more dollars” due to the Bank Bailouts and Economic Crisis and “the high cost” of the Obama Health Insurance Plan ($ 1.6 trillion), for example, claims which have already been made to justify COLA elimination in the first place! In order to telegraph this future claim of “no more dollars” the elimination of the Social Security COLA was followed on May 13, 2009 with the announcement that the Social Security Trust Fund will be “insolvent” by 2016 and “totally depleted by 2037!” This contrived scenario, which was declared with fanfare by the Congress to be “UNSUSTAINABLE” and required “shared sacrifice through reduction of Social Security benefits,” was made possible primarily by the complete abolition of the progressive tax structure in the United States described above. According to a report from the Government Accountability Office (Associated Press, August 12, 2008) 66% of U.S. companies paid no federal income taxes and 68% of foreign companies doing business in the United States paid zero corporate taxes between 1998 and 2005, while reporting $2.5 trillion in sales! This includes 1.2 million U.S. companies and 38,000 foreign companies. The only taxes which remain today are regressive taxes meaning that they target the Working Class and Poor primarily. Examples include: 1.) National sales tax, 2.) National value-added tax, 3.) Flat Tax, 4.) Increases in the subway and bus fares and tolls and 4.) Outright cuts in services even in the U.S. Post Office and 4.) The system of fines, which the Bolsheviks abolished entirely in 1917, is even being ridiculously increased.The Capitalist Dictatorship Keeps the Masses Totally Confused About Taxes!There is never any explanation provided concerning the vast difference between progressive taxes, which normally tax the rich more than 90% of their income, versus regressive taxes which tax the poor and which are correctly opposed by the masses. By cleverly manipulating and omitting these simple, fundamental facts of taxation the capitalist dictatorship of billionaires and millionaires is able to keep the masses totally confused and opposed to “taxes” in general, and with their reduced understanding this means only regressive taxes, the only taxes which are imposed in this, the most reactionary period of end stage capitalism. Abolishing the progressive tax system and imposing only regressive taxes combined with the bank bailouts, supply-side economics and basic exploitation of labor mentioned above has allowed the capitalist dictatorship to steal virtually every last penny leaving nothing for social services or even infrastructure maintenance! This follows naturally from the one-way dynamic of capitalism, which is not based on human need but only on increasing private profits. This dialectical and historical analysis is the only explanation which fits the facts.The Real Purpose of Bank Bailouts is to Divert Money FromSocial Spending—the Same Purpose as Supply-Side Economics!The Only Way to Lift the Economy Out of Crisis isTo STIMULATE DEMAND Through Huge Federal JobsPrograms Just Like the New Deal and World War II!Note that Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave no money whatsoever to the banks to lift the U.S. out of the Great Depression! Instead FDR created DEMAND by creating JOBS with huge New Deal Federal Jobs programs (e.g. the WPA, etc.) to replace the jobs lost in the private sector, and finally by the huge spending of WWII, which was the largest federal jobs program in all U.S. history! Creating Demand through enormous Federal Jobs Programs is equally important in the present Economic Crisis as it was during the Great Depression, despite the fact that origins of the 2 crises are somewhat different. (See Part II Analysis.) The reasons for this are twofold: 1.) The jobs which have been lost, more than 18-20 million actual jobs lost and more than 30 million unemployed if ALL categories are included, are from the PRIVATE SECTOR and there are NO more private employers! and 2.) Demand is what drives the economy! The $4.7 trillion Bank Bailouts of 2008-2009 are simply being used as the pretext to DIVERT money away from Social Programs just as Supply Side/Trickle Down/Reaganomics/Bush Tax Cut economics is also used to divert money from Social Spending and has NOTHING to do with stimulating the economy, as so eloquently explained by Ronald Reagan’s economic Czar, David Stockman in his book “The Triumph of Politics: Why The Reagan Revolution Failed!”Instead of Implementing Another New DealObama Offers the No Deal and The Bad Deal!Emphasis on the Federal Deficit Is Being UsedTo Set the Stage for Cuts in Social Programs!The real reason that Obama started talking about cutting the deficit in half the day after his tiny “stimulus plan” was signed into law was to set the stage and provide a false basis for huge $500 Billion cuts in Medicare/Medicaid and eliminating the Social Security Cost-of-Living Allowance and other social programs. As mentioned, Obama has frequently promised to “rein in spending on retirement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.” (New York Times, January 8, 2009). On May 8, 2009 Obama called for making 121 budget cuts to save a paltry $17 billion (Associated Press), budget cuts most of which are designed to target the Working Class and the Poor and to help to put them in the gutter. Then later in order to provide further false basis for these cuts in social programs the Obama Regime Office of Management and Budget raised its 10-year federal deficit estimate to $9 trillion stating that Obama is also “committed to addressing the shortfall in the Social Security system.” (New York Times, August 26, 2009) But Obama has already taken a giant leap to ending the FUNCTION of Social Security by eliminating the Social Security COLA. See above.In addition, Housing foreclosures escalate every day under Obama’s “PLAN” which is deliberately designed to help only a TINY percentage of borrowers! Obama said nothing while the Democratically-controlled Senate, which is completely controlled by the big capitalists, blocked changing the bankruptcy law to permit reducing the amount that homeowners owed on a first mortgage stating that homeowners must instead enter the government foreclosure relief program, controlled by the banks, whose participation is entirely voluntary (!) and which only permit much smaller reductions in mortgage payments. The banks, in turn, almost uniformly give homeowners bad deals or fail to negotiate in good faith with borrowers because the late fees they earn far exceed the paltry $1,000-$4,000 “enticements” offered by Obama. CNBC TV reports that there may be up to 10 million foreclosures in the next 3 years! The “Stimulus Plan” does not address this reality. The truth is that the Obama so-called “Stimulus Plan” is actually deliberately designed to INCREASE the number of homeless in the United States and thereby reduce the “population demographic” by bringing these people to an earlier death! This is covert mass murder combined with maximum denial and is another demonstration of just how effective the Big Lie technique is when directed at an unorganized population which has been rendered anti-Communist.The Obama Regime is Deliberately Using Mortgage Defaultsto Increase Homelessness and Reduce the Population!The Obama plan to “reduce mortgage foreclosures” is actually deliberately designed to INCREASE FORECLOSURES! It was openly admitted on the front page of the New York Times (July 30, 2009) that astronomical Late-Fee Profits DWARF the tiny $4,000 “incentive offered banks by the Obama Regime not to foreclose on customers! The Obama incentives help only 9% of “eligible homeowners” (New York Times, August 5, 2009). In addition, the massive loss of jobs makes even previously so-called creditworthy homeowners fall behind on mortgage payments and become homeless. Videos on the Evening News document that tent cities now exist in many U.S. cities inhabited by those who have been foreclosed upon, similar to the Hoovervilles during the Great Depression. A government decreed complete moratorium on mortgage foreclosures is obviously required and should have been announced the day Obama took office if he had been serious, which he never was! The Obama Regime could still announce a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures but it will NEVER DO SO because Obama represents the capitalist dictatorship of billionaires and millionaires not the working class and their allies and because of the one-way dynamic of capitalism described above. False emphasis on the federal deficit rather than on creating a massive federal jobs program to stimulate demand demonstrates the sophisticated and extensive manipulation of public opinion which is involved. Obama offers the No Deal and the Bad Deal of capitalism.Cutting Government Spending to “Cut the Deficit” isHistorically Documented to Deepen Economic Crisis!Only by Increasing Spending to the Level of CombinedNew Deal/World War II Spending to 37% of GDP andALL on Federal Jobs Programs is it Possible LiftThe United States Out of the Economic Crisis!False focus on the federal deficit is deliberately used to 1.) provide false support to cut Social Security Benefits and cut $500 billion from Medicare/Medicaid and 2.) divert attention from what is actually required to end the Economic Crisis and will make that crisis much worse! The capitalist dictatorship of millionaires and billionaires believes that this is necessary in order to solve the political problem of the “population demographic” in order to reduce the population in the U.S. in accordance with the demands of Globalism and the One-Way Dynamic of capitalism. The Obama Regime professes to be SO CONCERNED about the federal deficit increasing because of the “Healthcare Overhaul,” and so-called “entitlements,” Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. But it is also well known that cutting government spending while in an economic crisis will only deepen the crisis as when FDR mistakenly listened to the right wing and cut spending after the 1936 elections resulting in the “recession within the Depression” in 1937-1938. Cutting spending deepened the Japanese recession in the 1990’s. On the other hand, increasing spending sufficiently will lift a capitalist economy out of depression and entirely eliminate the federal deficit.The combination of New Deal and especially World War II spending on Federal Jobs Programs, to the level of 37% of GDP, is the ONLY thing which lifted the U.S. out of the Great Depression and eliminated the huge federal deficit, which was much greater than the present federal deficit! This spending on Federal Jobs Programs STIMULATED DEMAND—THE ENGINE OF THE ECONOMY and in combination with the Progressive Tax Structure described above, permitted the greatest economic expansion in all U.S. history in the late 1940’s and 1950’s. This has been corroborated by history and PREVIOUS explanations of the capitalists’ own Nobel Prize winner economist Paul Krugman and many others. Paul Krugman has recently tried to place the focus and blame for the Economic Crisis on individuals such as Reagan and others rather than being due to the dynamic of capitalism about which he deliberately remains silent. Krugman does this to keep readers confused as to what precisely is actually required in order to lift the economy out of the Economic Crisis. Krugman now just calls for “more stimulus” but refrains from saying how much more and how it should be spent. Krugman acknowledges that running a large deficit is normal during an Economic Crisis but hides the fact that the Obama Regime is putting so much focus on the deficit to provide a false pretext for cuts in government spending on social programs. Demonstrating that he is simply a tool of the capitalist dictatorship, Krugman SUPPORTS these cuts in social programs and false “savings” and does NOT point out that Federal spending to the level of New Deal/WWII spending, 37% of GDP is what is required to both lift the economy out of the crisis and totally eliminate the federal deficit. Is it bad guy versus good guys or is it increasing spending to 37% of GDP, primarily centered on federal jobs programs? The answer is obvious!The reality is that while people such as Reagan, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, William Clinton, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and

The reality is that while people such as Reagan, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, William Clinton, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and many others, including all of those who are now pretending to try to “save the economy,” were indeed involved in creating the economic crisis, the economic crisis was CAUSED by the dynamic of capitalism itself. The real reason the capitalist dictatorship of billionaires and millionaires talks about cutting the federal deficit and the real reason that false propaganda articles are written about “the dangers of the federal deficit” is to set the masses up to accept the gradual abolition of the social programs and even to make the masses feel somehow obligated to give up benefits. For example, both Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid is falsely claimed to be “unsustainable” and supposedly HARMFUL to the capitalist economy. (!) (But the absence of a Progressive Tax Structure in the United States is NOT considered harmful to the economy!) Note that Bush set Medicare on the road to bankruptcy. Those programs are to be eventually abolished by folding them into the Obama “Healthcare Overhaul,” ending free healthcare under the phony banner of “healthcare for all.” Capitalism is fundamentally based on war, mass murder and crime to steal new resources and new markets to increase private profits, a system where those who rise to the top are those who best express and further that one-way direction of capitalism! This should be increasingly obvious, and first and foremost it includes Obama. See below!Obama is Much More Dangerous and is Much Worse than Bush!It should be noted that Clinton, also a Democrat, abolished the first part of Social Security—Welfare, something which Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush could NEVER have done because they were so hated and despised by the Democratic constituencies which forms the overwhelming majority of the U.S. population. In addition, Clinton deliberately turned control of the Congress over to the Republicans in the 1994 Midterm “elections” in order to make it possible. See below. For those with short memories Clinton presided over the division and subjugation of Yugoslavia by NATO, and bombed Iraq continuously almost every day of his administration! Obama is subsequently far more dangerous than George E. Bush ever was because the Democratic constituencies which voted for Obama do not yet suspect what the capitalist dictatorship has planned and they do not understand the one-way dynamic of capitalism and mistakenly still think in terms of individuals, bad guys versus good guys—cops and robbers—rather than understanding that what happens is due to the natural one-way development of the economic-political system of capitalism!The Obama “Election Was Rigged FundamentallyAnd by Direct Agreement With John McCain!The “presidential election” was rigged by agreement between the presidential candidates as all presidential elections have been since the Watergate removal of Richard Nixon. See below. McCain deliberately sabotaged his own candidacy and took a fall so that the Democrats would take the White House. Please note: the purpose of the U.S. government’s focus on the clumsily rigged, fraudulent elections in Iran in June 2009 was: 1.) To falsely legitimize the U.S. presidential “elections” in comparison, which are rigged fundamentally but also rigged from every other conceivable angle in much more sophisticated ways (see below) and 2.) To discredit the Islamic Theocracy not only in Iran but also generally throughout Central Asia and other Moslem areas where Islamic Fundamentalists are trying to set up Islamic Theocracies! The United States itself installed the Islamic Theocracy in Iran after the 1979 overthrow of the Shah, in order to counterpose Islamic Fundamentalism to Marxism-Leninism and the national liberation movement in Iran, when it became apparent that the Peoples Fedayeen a Marxist group might take state power and then as a new Workers’ State side with the USSR. The U.S. especially did not want to lose the huge oil reserves of Iran! At that point the USSR was considered a far greater threat to world capitalism than Islamic Fundamentalism, which the capitalist dictatorship has always easily manipulated to its own advantage. (See below.) The U.S. supported the Green (colored) counter-revolution of Mir-Hossein Mousavi not because of any U.S. friendly policies of Mousavi (who targeted the U.S. when he was Prime Minister from 1981 to 1989, when he helped organize the 1983 truck bombings of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon, for example). The U.S. supports the Iranian “opposition” only because Mousavi is NOT Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and in order to try to undermine the Islamic Theocracy, introduce chaos and set the stage for later regime change. Mousavi’s nuclear energy policies do not differ substantially from those of Ahmadinejad so the planned bombing of Iran nuclear facilities by the U.S. Proxy, so-called “Israel” has not been called off. (See Materialist Analysis of the Mideast by this writer)U.S. Presidential Elections Were Rigged in Advance Even Prior to the2000-2004 CoupD’Etat by the Bush Regime, which FundamentallyAltered the U.S. Capitalist Dictatorship, Hardening its Dictatorshipwith Aid and Full Cooperation of Democratic Party Leadership!The “presidential elections” have been staged every 4 years with the outcome decided upon in advance by agreement between the candidates themselves ever since the removal of Nixon in Watergate. In this respect it has been similar to TV Wrestling. It is a fact of capitalist statecraft that policies, programs including wars may be carried out more easily under one party than another because of the difference in constituency support of the 2 parties. If certain policies and programs are carried out under the wrong party that can result in loss of constituency support for that party and work to undermine the illusion of “democracy” in what is actually a hardening capitalist dictatorship in the United States. In order to achieve the agreed upon election outcome the candidate who has agreed to take a fall invariably makes some deliberate “mistakes” of commission or omission, similar to shooting himself in the foot, which is focused on by the media to provide a basis to vote against that candidate. The media moves in hard to make the point and cover-up other information which otherwise might lead to a contrary result. There have been many variations on this theme since Watergate. This approach, which has now become vastly simplified with the introduction of computerized/touch-screen voting machines, has also required the use of “Third Party” candidates, which have been used to split the election so the chosen candidate is able to win. Up to the 2004 “election” this has been necessary to overcome the natural “advantage” of an incumbent president or party.The candidates chosen for the staged presidential elections are infull agreement with the principal that the interests of the capitalistsystem supercede their own personal goals and aggrandizement.This has been the case ever since Watergate, the bloodless removal of Nixon by the Nelson Rockefeller faction in 1974. (As a matter of record “Seconds in Command at the FBI” such as Mark Felt do not bring down governments!) The assassinations of the 1960’s had become much too messy and created unnecessary cover-up problems for the capitalist system, putting it on the defensive. This was in addition to the direct threat that Nelson Rockefeller felt from Richard Nixon, who had previously assassinated John Kennedy in 1963, Robert Kennedy in 1968 and also shot George Wallace out of the race in 1972, because if Wallace had been healthy and not a paraplegic due to the bullet directed by Richard Nixon he would have split the right-wing vote and the Democrats would have won. In addition, Nelson Rockefeller knew that Nixon had apparently assassinated former president Lyndon Johnson, who had been photographed after he left office and grew his hair long like a hippie and smoked marihuana and was considered a “bad role model.” In addition, Johnson or Nixon who used Dealey Plaza “tramps”/later “Watergate Burglars” CIA assassins E. Howard Hunt and Frank Fiorini Sturgis to assassinate JFK apparently also may have had a hand along with then president Johnson and FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover in the assassination of Adlai Stevenson, perennial presidential candidate and a well-known and highly respected leader in the Democratic Party in London on July 14, 1965 after stating that he was taking a position against the Vietnam War and would return to the United States and play a leading role in order to bring the war to an end. Stevenson was assassinated by the Nixon-directed CIA “wet section” apparently with a gun, which shoots a capsule of either shellfish toxin or VX liquid nerve gas (which penetrates right through normal clothing) either of which will kill a person within 2 minutes after touching the skin. (Stevenson supposedly suffered a “heart attack” while on a London street.) Rockefeller forced this gun to be brought out in the 1976 Rockefeller Hearings where its use was described in full, but not its targets. This fact is now fully covered up on the Internet.Kerry Actually Won the 2004 Election in a Landslide!Bush was Never the President of the United States!The 2000 and 2004 Coup D’Etat Made Bush a Usurper!In 2004 Kerry actually won the “election” by upward of a million votes or more, perhaps much more, just as Gore won by at least 500,000 votes in 2000. Kerry was way ahead on the Exit Polls up until late afternoon on Election Day. Exit Polls are nearly always within one percentage point of actual U.S. election results. CBS, NBC and ABC did not carry out Exit Polls because the discrepancy of so many Exit Poll results having Kerry way ahead would be too glaring a contradiction with the planned election outcome, which the government intended to announce, namely a “Bush victory.” Instead Edison International and Mitofsky International alone carried out Exit Polls. In the Nov 5, 2004 New York Times and on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer also on Nov 5th, Warren Mitofsky, CEO of that company, stated that when he discovered that the results showing Kerry far ahead by millions of votes had gotten out on the Internet on Election Day, he cancelled the Exit Polls and thereafter reported “only the official election results,” which suddenly put Bush ahead by millions of votes! This Simply Does Not Compute! And contrary to the orchestrated campaign of lies to the contrary it most certainly had nothing to do with false claims such as “the median age of the surveyors, 34, which over-represented young voters, who tended to vote for Kerry.” (!) New York Times, January 20, 2005. The CEO of Diebold Walden O’Dell stated in a mailing that he would “do everything in his power to make sure that Bush was re-elected President.” (Of course, Bush is not president and never was president. He remains a usurper.) And Florida, which had been going to Kerry BIG by well over a million votes was, few hours later conceded to Bush. (!)The same for Ohio, and in the Ohio recount Kerry and the Democratic leadership, under pressure from their hapless duped constituents, agreed to demand a recount, but assured the Republicans in advance that “no matter what the outcome the Democratic Party did NOT intend to challenge the election outcome!” There were tens of millions, not millions, of new voters in the 2004 “elections.” The registrations and votes of a large percentage of them were simply thrown out, vaporized. The election process in both Ohio and Florida was controlled by the Republican Party, and the Democratic Party leadership cooperated fully just as they did in 2000 and 2004, in a consolidation of what has been and is in fact an ongoing Coup D’Etat. Ralph Nader’s role in splitting the opposition to Bush especially in Florida where in 2000, according to the New York Times, he reportedly drew 93,837 votes and helped assure a Bush “victory” was not as important in 2004 because his 2000 role was exposed under pressure primarily originating from Communist elements. In addition, two-thirds of the 2004 U.S. presidential “elections” were carried out on computerized touch-screen voting machines. This was where Bush was given his fictitious “3½ million vote lead.” If the Democratic Party was serious which it is not, it would demand vote by paper ballot as in Canada and Europe, for example, where there is a much higher population density and it is realized that it is much easier to stuff an electronic/touch screen computerized voting machine than a paper ballot box, which the masses insist on! Not a “paper trail”—paper ballots! This was the objective, the reason computerized touch-screen voting machines were installed in the first place. With this weapon the throwing of presidential elections has now become a piece of cake. The vote-splitting assistance of a pumped up 3rd party candidate, used since Watergate to split the elections for one candidate or another, is hardly necessary anymore, except as a distraction or protest vote by those who are more easily duped. Because of this 2000-2004 coup d’etat Bush was never the “president” of the United States. He was a usurper at all times and should always be referred to as such. This means that everything which transpired during the Bush Regime was illegal on its face, including all legislation passed, all policies and all military invasions of other countries.Despite the Fact that Obama Simply Represents a ContinuationOf the Capitalist Dictatorship the “Election” of Obama hasOne Very Important Potential Organizational Advantage!While it is undeniable that Obama simply represents a continuation and hardening of the capitalist dictatorship his “election” holds one potential organizational advantage IF THE MASSES REALIZE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT: Obama’s “election” proves that the primary division which exists in the United States is NOT on the basis of race. The primary division that exists in the United States is the CLASS DIVISION! This is important because it provides an even stronger basis for Black and white Unity of the Working Class and its allies versus the capitalist dictatorship and its servants and bootlickers represented by the Obama Regime. If Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic primary she would also have won the “election” but that would have been a retrograde step. There would be the complaint that what we need is a “Black” president! So Obama’s election eliminates this extra step and has the potential to more rapidly raise the awareness of the masses enough to increase racial unity against the capitalist dictatorship. The enormous media hype, which was designed not only to pump up their Obama demagogue but also to intimidate those who see through, it is falling flat. Obama is rapidly losing his “popularity” and “political capital”! So don’t be intimidated! Obama is just a balloon, a con man and demagogue trying to string the masses along while setting them up as targets of economic warfare, biological warfare and propaganda warfare.Racism Is An Integral Part of Capitalism andTherefore Cannot Be Abolished under Capitalism!Only a Socialist Revolution in the United States can abolish racism because racism is an integral part of capitalism. Racism is defined as that systematized set of false beliefs in the racial inferiority of Blacks and other People of Color as a false pretext to justify the exploitation and super-exploitation of Blacks and other People of Color. Racism is thus simply a brainwash used to justify economic exploitation and super-exploitation, which began with slavery and exists now as wage slavery. This truth is also covered up by the fake “left.” Communists oppose exploitation and super-exploitation of U.S. born Workers employed in so-called “McJobs.” Communists also oppose super-exploitation of immigrants. Immigration is being used by the capitalists to drive down the wage scale of U.S. Workers and fragment the U.S. Working Class. The Big Lie is that immigrants presently perform low-paying jobs supposedly because “Americans don’t want to do that sort of work.” The reality is that Americans would gladly perform ANY work presently performed by Latin American immigrants, for example, if they received a salary of $40,000 to $50,000.00 a year to do it! Low skilled immigrants are brought into the United States precisely because their “illegal” status forces the to agree to be super-exploited because that is better than what existed in their home countries! Despite this glaring reality Immigration can be and must be supported by simultaneously calling for the union wage scale and equal status for all Immigrants as well as all U.S. born workers! In order that no false illusions are raised by deceptive claims that capitalism can be reformed, equal focus must be placed simultaneously on the reality that such objectives of equality and freedom cannot be achieved under capitalism, but only after a Socialist Revolution in the United States, after which the main economic motivation for mass immigration of workers will largely disappear, because the Socialist Revolution will take place worldwide and with it exploitation and super-exploitation in all countries! All progressive people while and Black should be reminded also never ever to use the word nigger! Use of that word reinforces racism whenever and wherever it is used. That is the reason the capitalist dictatorship pushes creeps like Chris Rock, whose every other word is “nigger,” in order to reinforce racism among the Black population his primary audience. Isn’t he funny! Hahaha! Reject such “humor!” Capitalism offers a world with no future and no longer works and can not be reformed!There was No “Collapse” of the Soviet Union!Gorbachev’s 1988 Soviet Surrender Was Based onLenin’s Strategy of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk!The capitalist dictatorship of millionaires and billionaires constantly repeats the Big Lie that the Soviet Union “collapsed.” The truth is far different. Gorbachev surrendered to the threat of a nuclear threat created by the United States. In carrying out his 1988 surrender to the threat of a nuclear war Gorbachev was following the Strategy of Brest Litovsk, where Lenin was forced to sign an ignominious peace agreement with the German Kaiser in order to gain time with the understanding that all the Russian land that the early Soviets were forced to give up would be later regained. That was the case and the Soviets later recovered all of the land which they had given up to the Germans. Gorbachev was completely correct in believing that the inexorable outcome of a nuclear arms race was nuclear war and that the situation at that time left no other choice but to surrender. Gorbachev also knew and calculated that by the Soviet Union leaving the field in the so-called “Cold War” that the dynamic of capitalism would continue unchecked thus exacerbating and accelerating the contradictions of capitalism-imperialism and hopefully making these contradictions stand out in bold relief and bringing it closer to the final scrap heap of human history. The dynamic of capitalism has indeed been accelerated in spades! The result was the present Economic Crisis. But the U.S.-led Fascists are once again on the Russian doorstep. Gorbachev wanted to try to eliminate the nuclear threat. And he did so—but only for a time! Gorbachev did buy important time just like Lenin did. But was it enough time? Time will tell!! Gorbachev also wanted to integrate the former USSR into the world capitalist economy making it much less likely to be a nuclear target of world capitalism. And he did so but only up to the point of Bush’s abandoning the 1972 ABM Treaty, on June 13, 2002, in U.S. preparation to continue its so-called “missile defense” in the Czech Republic and Poland on the border of the Russian Federation, which combined with the NATO presence now on the border of Russia, is nothing more than an attempt to force a second Russian Surrender. (See below.) But the 1988 Soviet Surrender to the Threat of a Nuclear War also created many more contradictions.Today, Russia in a typically bizarre Stalinist opportunist fashion, sounding especially strange in light of the incipient Depression, has now agreed to the U.S. fraudulent propaganda claim of “economic collapse of the USSR” in order to try to placate and guarantee peace with U.S.-led world imperialism, now that the Soviet Workers’ State has largely been dismantled. For example, Peter Lavelle and others on Russia Today TV, while still presenting the Russian response to world events, which correctly always seeks to avert confrontation, never loses an opportunity to repeat the Big Lie about the supposed “Soviet Collapse” in order to try to ingratiate Russia with the U.S. capitalist dictatorship. But now “Russia” finds how fast that “peace” has disappeared, with the U.S. breaking virtually all of the U.S.-Soviet Peace Treaties of the 1990’s starting with the cornerstone of the agreements with the Soviet Union, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972, which Bush formally broke on June 13, 2002 thus forcing the Russian Federation to withdraw from Start II, which banned the use of MIRV warheads on ICBMs. NATO ships now fill the Black Sea as a further provocation after the U.S./Georgian Invasion/Provocation of South Ossetia, which the U.S. indubitably is rearming. In addition the U.S. is directing their Ukraine puppet Viktor Yushchenko to push the provocation/demand that the Russian fleet abandon its main Sevastopol base in the Crimea inhabited by 70% Russians!! Lots of luck! The U.S. is also building air bases in Georgia, (Just like they built Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo (see below), which it plans to use against Iran and other countries. In addition, the U.S. is trying to steal Russian oil by planned diversion of the Caspian pipeline away from Russia (the Nabucco Pipeline)but is not having much success because Putin’s South Stream Pipeline has Turkish support! Public opinion in Europe does not support either the U.S. or NATO in such anti-Russian adventures, which are bound to fail no matter how many provocations are carried out and how many Big Lies are told.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s United Nations speech on September 28, 2008 stated. “Enough is enough” with regard to 1.) the U.S. Unipolar/One Superpower Worldview rather than the multipolar worldview that the United Nations was ostensibly set up for and 2.) the continual U.S. warmongering, which Lavrov failed to mention is due to the dynamic of capitalism-imperialism, which is fundamentally based on war, mass murder and crime and which cannot be reformed or reversed. Lavrov was forced to omit this glaring reality. He had no choice due to the politics of non-confrontation, which are correct at this time, and which follow both from Stalinist opportunism (not Communism) and the 1988 Gorbachev surrender to the threat of a nuclear war. See below. Vladimir Putin appeared to win the battle for public opinion when he sounded this same theme appealing for cooperation rather than confrontation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 27, 2009. But the dynamic of capitalism-imperialism does not respect public opinion. The capitalists invariably try to direct the anger of the masses toward the enemies of capitalism-imperialism. In this case we can expect the U.S. government to try to direct the anger of the American people over the U.S./World capitalist economic collapse toward Russia and China if at all possible. The capitalists hope that the American people will forget important rules of inductive reasoning, which are deliberately never taught in any capitalist school, but must be acquired intuitively and/or through study on one’s own: 1.) the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and: 2.) the friend of my enemy is my enemy! This is one more reason why we need, and the World needs, a Socialist Revolution in the United States!The false claim of “economic collapse of the Soviet Union” was fabricated by the United States in order to try to demoralize the masses of the world, and the United States especially, against the only solution to the complex of problems created by capitalism-imperialism. That solution is Socialism! Which can only be achieved through a Socialist Revolution in the United States, which itself can only be carried out peacefully by winning over popular support as occurred in the October Russian Revolution of 1917. Mikhail Gorbachev’s Op-Ed column in the New York Times, August 20, 2008, was the typical Stalinist (Not Communist!) opportunist, anti-Communist response, which did not explain the clever U.S. strategy of provocation, primarily in order to create ethnic division in the Caucuses designed to last for generations and that Russia was forced to respond to these provocations.Analysis of the 1988 Soviet SurrenderTo the Threat of a Nuclear WarIn his 1988 surrender to the United States Gorbachev, in his efforts to please the capitalists, carried out some rather heinous acts of murder of prominent Soviet statesmen, prominent Soviet representatives and assorted “stones in the shoe” of the capitalists. For example, Gorbachev undoubtedly had his own Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko murdered in July 1989 because it would be inconceivable that Gromyko could espouse the surrender terms that Gorbachev had agreed to and may have openly opposed them. Gromyko was thus seen as a potential troublemaker in the planned Soviet surrender. A living Gromyko would be more respected than a live Gorbachev. The U.S. and the USSR had also previously agreed to the murder of NAZI Rudolph Hess in preparation for the rather long-planned Soviet Surrender. (Remember even before he took power on March 12, 1985 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s December 1984’s highly publicized statement: “We can do business with Mr. Gorbachev!”) Hess was a totally frail 93 years old NAZI imprisoned in Spandau Prison in Germany and simply refused to die a natural death. Hess was a continuing symbol of the NAZIs and the need for a continuing Soviet presence in Eastern Europe and thus an obstacle to the planned Soviet surrender and the planned break-up and Soviet withdrawal from the countries which made up the Warsaw Treaty Organization. An extremely frail Hess, who needed help in tying his shoes by a male nurse, was murdered by the Americans with USSR agreement, by wrapping an electric cord around his neck and choking him to death. The media trumpeted “suicide, when he had never ever attempted “suicide” previously, despite media “Big Lie” claims to the contrary. And the prolific Hess left no suicide note and was moreover physically totally feeble and completely unable to choke himself to death according to testimony by relatives! See extensive coverage in the New York Times on and after August 17, 2008. In addition, Gorbachev also gave the order for the murder of Kim Philby in May 1988, a Soviet Agent who had led the Russian division of British Intelligence (!) for 19 years (!) from 1944 and had escaped to the USSR in 1963 just in the nick of time to prevent his capture. His existence was a total embarrasment to British “Intelligence.” In 1965 Kim Philby was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, one of the highest Soviet awards, and was made a General in the KGB. Philby was another “stone in the shoe” of the capitalists who had to be removed! With these people dead no one could ask THEIR opinions on the Gorbachev surrender. Because they were dead! Several others who had defected to the Soviet Union were also murdered to “clear the slate” for the coming Soviet Surrender.Gorbachev’s own wife considered him to be a traitor and was estranged from him after Gorbachev carried out the final provocation(s) he used to discredit the Soviet leadership, many of whom were previously the respected and personal friends of both Gorbachevs, but who were not allied to him in his surrender to the United States and had to be eliminated. On August 4, 1991 with great fanfare the hugely unpopular Gorbachev took a vacation to the Crimea and behind the scenes encouraged the so-called “Gang of Eight,” some of whom accompanied him to the Crimea (!) to stage what was described later as a “coup,” but unknown to them Gorbachev cut all their lines of communication and chain of command. Gorbachev controlled the media completely, NOT the other way around as officially portrayed, thus setting this “Communist (Stalinist)” opposition up to be discredited and removed officially from all top government posts. Boris Yeltsin, an expert demagogue, was appointed beforehand by Gorbachev to move into the gap while Gorbachev was supposedly being “imprisoned in the Crimea.” Yeltsin was new and did not share Gorbachev’s mantle of unpopularity in the Soviet Union and the crowds were peppered with shills to scream his name, which the world capitalist media reported with glee. The media showed Yeltsin “heroically” denouncing the “coup” from the top of a tank. Gorbachev himself directed the so-called “Gang of Eight” to set up a plan of measures that supposedly could be taken in case a state of emergency!Deputy USSR Defense Minister General Valentin Varennikov stated that Gorbachev himself had supported the coup and was behind all eight and had told the group: “Do what you think is needed, damn you!” to restore order and declare a state of emergency. Gorbachev knew these individuals opposed him and gave them the rope to hang themselves. The official name for the group was the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP), and was headed by Vice President Gennadii Yanayev. Others included KGB head Vladimir Kryuchkov, Soviet Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, the USSR Internal Affairs Minister, Boris Pugo, Deputy Chief of the USSR Defense Council Oleg Baklanov, Vasily Starodubtsev, chairman of the USSR Peasant Union and Alexander Tizyakov, president of the Association of the State Enterprises and Conglomerates of Industry, Transport, and Communications. This group was almost immediately dismissed from their offices by Gorbachev after the coup began and Gorbachev returned to Moscow with some of those very members (!), who were then all arrested. Pugo and his wife supposedly “committed suicide” but the reported circumstances at the time indicate that it was murder. A highly publicized and staged attack on the Soviet Parliament, the so-called “White House,” which had to be put down militarily, was then carried out as yet another provocation to send the message of intimidation to the Communist Party members of Parliament and the masses (who hated Gorbachev and what was happening under his leadership), that the Soviet military supported the Gorbachev/Yeltsin leadership. Later Gorbachev resigned officially and the Soviet surrender was consolidated under Yeltsin who liquidated the USSR officially on December 8, 1991, when the USSR, Belarus and the Ukraine signed the Belovezh Agreement, dissolving the Soviet Union and establishing a Commonwealth of Independent States. Pretty quick work! No?In his August 20, 2008 New York Times Op-Ed Gorbachev also lied through omission by omitting the obvious long-range U.S. objectives of the U.S./Georgian Invasion/Provocation of South Ossetia. Putin and Medvedev to their credit eventually exposed these objectives although only secondarily and without appropriate focus and emphasis! Russia has used others wherever possible such Alexandr Chachiya, for example. (See Materialist Analysis of the August 7, 2008 U.S./Georgian/Ukrainian Invasion of South Ossetia.) By honestly and precisely explaining these provocations Russia would be able to explain how the U.S. intends to manipulate public opinion. This way the public in all countries would be on guard not to allow itself to be manipulated by the country which lied about “Weapons of Mass Destruction” in Iraq and which lies about everything including the most recent Bailout of Wall Street. This should be a no-brainer but Stalinist opportunism blocks the mind.Capitalism is in its Final Stage of Permanent War, Which isPotentially the Most Ideal Pre-Revolutionary Situation Possible!The negatives of capitalism far outweigh the positives and have for a long time! The choice we have is to remain passive passengers on this Titanic, which is going only one way—down with us on it, or we can begin to call for and organize a Socialist Revolution, which will provide the solution to the entire complex of problems created by capitalism-imperialism which now directly threatens all life on Earth. In order for alternative viewpoints to be heard equally as loud as those of the capitalist dictatorship the capitalists must first be deprived of the ability to send bodies of armed men against the masses. The capitalist class must be disarmed!! That is why the Pre-Condition for Socialist Revolution in the United States and any developed country is Mutiny in the armed forces, which is what happened in Russia in 1917 when the Russian army mutineed during WWI. That’s our model just as the Paris Commune was their model, but just as they did not make the mistakes of the Commune, we will not make the mistakes they made and there will be no more center of world capitalism to contend with! That is why we must begin by supporting the only position with successful historical precedent and call for Mutiny in Iraq as in Vietnam—the Real Reason the Vietnam War Ended in 1975! There is no “third way” or alternative to capitalism-imperialism, which can not be reformed through any form of elections within the constantly hardening capitalist dictatorship, or by any other means such as “Impeach Bush” or “Impeach Blair,” which are just strategies designed to deceive the masses and bring those opposed to the capitalist dictatorship back into the fold. Impeaching Bush or Blair would not change anything because the capitalist class dictatorship would not have changed The strategy, tactics and techniques of achieving a Socialist Revolution in the United States are discussed further herein and in future posts.The Declaration of Independence:No Founding Document of the United States Enshrines Capitalism as the Permanent Economic System! On the contrary, The Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson is a actually a Transitional Document which authorizes a Socialist Revolution in the United States as the Only Prudent and Appropriate Response to the Level of Tyranny, Oppression and Threat to Human Civilization and Indeed All Life on Earth, which the United States Capitalist Class Dictatorship has Subjected the Entire World!Some people think that a Socialist Revolution in the United States is some sort of foreign idea which would not work in the United States. That is absolute nonsense! In fact, the author of the Declaration of Independence provided the remedy, the solution, for today’s situation in this founding document of the United States. The underlined sections below document that today Thomas Jefferson would fully support a Socialist Revolution in the United States and that he would be declared a Communist. Which would be correct! Jefferson was the most politically intelligent and far-sighted of all of the so-called Founding Fathers of the United States. The capitalist system is not enshrined in ANY founding document of the United States! All that is necessary in the last sentence of the Declaration is to substitute the words—the capitalist system—in place of “the King of Great Britain,” and it applies to today. The Declaration of Independence clearly authorizes and calls for a Socialist Revolution in the United States today!This document was written with careful foresight by one of the greatest intellectuals of the American bourgeois revolution and the world at that time. Most people have not read the Declaration of Independence since they have been children or have never read it. We are usually taught to learn only the first 2 lines and not to bother about the rest! The essence or gravamen of the Declaration of Independence makes up most of its text and appears below in the underlined sections. The fact that Jefferson wrote the document to apply not only to American revolutionary times but in fact expressly designed it to protect us from intolerable crimes of all future governments, in particular the destructive capitalist economic-political-social system in the present day, is covered up by the capitalist educational system, which clearly understands its true meaning and significance! (For example, if an attempt is made to enter a comment which contains the underlined sections below on certain Blog sites the entry is rejected with programmed X-marks crossing out each word written by Thomas Jefferson!)All of this naturally is covered up by U.S. government-operated phony “opposition” such as the “United Action Center,” ANSWER, United For Peace and Justice, Move-on, Workers World Party, the so-called “Revolutionary Party,” the Socialist Workers Party, Spartacist League, Workers League, Communist Party USA, the Progressive Labor Party etc., etc. Proper use of this document can greatly increase the acceptance of a revolutionary change in the form of the State and supports the present call right now for a Socialist Revolution in the United States. It is important to cite this founding document whenever calling for a Socialist Revolution in the United States. The founding fathers all signed this document, which states: “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of…the unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…it is their right, it is their duty, to…throw off such Government…to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…and “to provide new Guards for their future security…” This obviously does not mean to hold new “elections.” It calls for laying a new foundation and principles, which in today’s context means to organize the state and society on a different basis of class ownership, which is the only means to achieve the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness:We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed…with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”The handwriting is on the wall! It is time to organize! It is your right and it is your duty!___________________________________ ___William H. Depperman, CoordinatorUnited Front Against RacismAnd Capitalism-ImperialismUnion Square ParkNew York, N.Y. 10003August 30, 2009